Love in the Time of Cholera Love in the Time of Cholera Love in the Time of Cholera () is a novel by Colombian Nobel prize winning author Gabriel García Márquez. The novel was first published in Spanish in 1985. Alfred A. Knopf published an English translation in 1988, and an English-language movie adaptation was released in 2007. The main characters of the novel are Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza. Florentino and Fermina fall in love in their youth. A secret relationship blossoms between the two with the help of Fermina's Aunt Escolástica. They exchange several love letters. However, once Fermina's father, Lorenzo Daza, finds out
Love in the Time of Cholera (film) later, Fermina agrees to marry Dr. Juvenal Urbino, her father's choice. Their 50-year marriage is outwardly loving but inwardly marred by darker emotions. Fermina's marriage devastates Florentino, who vows to remain a virgin, but his self-denial is thwarted by a tryst. To help him get over Fermina, his mother throws a willing widow into his bed, and he discovers that sex is a very good pain reliever, one he uses to replace the opium that he had habitually smoked. He begins to record and describe each of his sexual encounters, beginning with the widow, and eventually compiles over 600 entries.