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encompassing the extensive memoirs of Bolívar's Irish aide-de-camp, Daniel Florencio O'Leary, as well as numerous other historical documents and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 Sands of Time (Sheldon novel) a few). Critics in Spain were so fierce that the Spanish edition had to include a disclaimer page. The Sands of Time (Sheldon novel) The Sands of Time is a 1988 action novel by author Sidney Sheldon. A best-seller, the novel follows the adventures of four women who are forced to leave their Spanish convent for the outside world of threat, violence and passions; and two men who are pitted against each other in a fight to the death. In Pamplona, Spain in 1976, the Basque people are fighting against the Spanish government for their rights to autonomy. ETA leader