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Overview
“A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” is a short story by Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez, first published in 1955 in the journal Casa de las Américas. The story is a magical-realist allegory that follows the arrival of a decrepit angel in a small coastal town. The townspeople’s reactions to the supernatural being oscillate between reverence, skepticism, and exploitation. The story explores themes of faith, otherness, and the nature of miracles. García Márquez received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982.
Read the full story summary, an in-depth character analysis of the old man, and explanations of important quotes from “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings.”
