A rural Colombian epic written in Mexico City and published in Buenos Aires, One Hundred Years of Solitude came out 50 years ago, on 30 May 1967. It didn’t inaugurate Latin America’s literary new wave, also including Julio Cortázar, Carlos Fuentes and Mario Vargas Llosa; but once translated Gabriel García Márquez’s seminal saga – a sexy, quasi-anthropological mixture of fabulous tales, lightly disguised history and seven-generation family soap opera – became the novel that gained “el Boom” recognition in the English-speaking world and shaped how it was perceived.