Colombia

The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World (El ahogado más hermoso del mundo) is a short story by Gabriel García Márquez, published in 1972 in the collection La increíble y triste historia de la cándida Eréndira y de su abuela desalmada. The story begins when some children discover a body washed up on the beach of a small coastal village. When they take it inland, the inhabitants are astonished by its enormous size and imposing presence. While the women clean and prepare it, they wonder who the man was and what his existence meant. From this discovery, the town begins to transform inwardly, touched by the mysterious grandeur of the drowned man.

The Woman Who Came at Six O’clock (La mujer que llegaba a las seis) is a short story by Gabriel García Márquez published in 1950 in El Espectador. The story takes place in a small restaurant where José, the owner, receives a woman every afternoon who always arrives at the same time. However, that afternoon, although her routine seems intact, she insists that she has arrived earlier. Through a tense dialogue full of innuendo, the woman gradually reveals the reason for her behavior.

Gabriel García Márquez’s Someone Has Been Disarranging These Roses is a surrealist short story about the spirit of a child who tries to bring roses to his grave every Sunday. The roses are grown by a devout woman who lives in the house where the boy once lived. Through the ghostly boy’s observation, the deep connection between him and the woman is revealed, a woman who tends an altar and grows flowers for a living.