The General in His Labyrinth explores the labyrinth of Bolívar's life through the narrative of his memories, in which "despair, sickness, and death inevitably win out over love, health, and life". Following the success of "One Hundred Years of Solitude" and "Love in the Time of Cholera", García Márquez decided to write about the "Great Liberator" after reading an unfinished novel by his friend Álvaro Mutis. He borrowed the setting—Bolívar's voyage down the Magdalena River in 1830—from Mutis. García Márquez spent two years researching the subject, encompassing the extensive memoirs of Bolívar's Irish aide-de-camp, Daniel Florencio O'Leary, as well as numerous other historical documents and
The Woman Who Waited Soviet life as it was lived in a northern corner of the empire", and wrote that it "manages to treat its themes in a beautifully readable manner". "Publishers Weekly" wrote that Makine "transforms a very simple premise into a richly textured story of love and loss". The book received the 2005 Prince Pierre Literary Prize. The Woman Who Waited The Woman Who Waited () is a 2004 novel by the French writer Andreï Makine. It is set in the 1970s and tells the story of a 26-year-old man who falls in love with a woman who still is faithful to