The first edition copy of late Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s most acclaimed book ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ was stolen from a book fair in Bogota, Colombia, on Sunday.
According to the copy owner Alvaro Castillo Granada, the book was stolen at the International Book Fair of Bogota organized to pay tributes to Marquez, who died last year.
The book was first published in Spanish in 1967 and is considered a literary masterpiece. It has been translated into 37 languages and has sold more than 30 million copies, Xinhua news agency reported.
The stolen copy has a dedication of “To Alvaro Castillo, the old-book seller, as yesterday and forever, your friend, Gabo” (Marquez was known as Gabo throughout Latin America).
It also has a cover different from that of other versions, featuring a boat surrounded by wild plants.
Castillo, who lent the book for the exhibition, said “the copy is invaluable and should not go on sale,” adding that an official complaint has been filed before the authorities.
Marquez, who died on April 17, 2014, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982. He has been described as “the greatest Colombian that ever lived”.
