The Incredible and Sad Tale of Innocent Eréndira and her Souless Grandmother (La increíble y triste historia de la cándida Eréndira y de su abuela desalmada) is a 1972 novella

Novella

A novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...

 by Colombian

Colombian people

Colombian people are from a multiethnic Spanish speaking nation in South America called Colombia. Colombians are predominantly Roman Catholic and are a mixture of Europeans, Africans, and Amerindians.-Demography:...

 writer Gabriel García Márquez

Gabriel García Márquez

Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez is a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist, known affectionately as Gabo throughout Latin America. He is considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in...

.

Plot summary

A 14-year-old girl (Eréndira) is living with her grandmother when she accidentally sets fire to their home. The grandmother forces Eréndira to repay the debt by becoming a prostitute as they travel a road as vagrants. Men line up to enjoy Eréndira's services and eventually after several years, Ulises, one of her clients, falls in love with her. She returns his affection and eventually he becomes willing to help her to freedom; he formulates a plan to escape with her and live off a fortune from oranges which contain diamonds smuggled by his Dutch father. The only obstacle lies in her grandmother, whom Eréndira convinces Ulises to kill. Not being the homicidal type, he attempts poisoning and an explosive, but must eventually resort to stabbing her while she sleeps. After he regains his composure following the murder, Eréndira runs off into the night alone leaving him in the tent with the grandmother.

Eréndira and her grandmother make an appearance in One Hundred Years of Solitude

One Hundred Years of Solitude

One Hundred Years of Solitude , by Gabriel García Márquez, is a novel which tells the multi-generational story of the Buendía family, whose patriarch, José Arcadio Buendía, founds the town of Macondo, the metaphoric Colombia...

, another book by García Márquez. Also included in this story are characters from other Márquez works, such as the spider with the woman's head from "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings

A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings

"A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" is a fictional short story by author Gabriel García Márquez written in 1955. It falls within the genre of magic realism, and is one of the short stories included in the book Leaf Storm.-Plot summary:...

" and Blacamán the Good from the story "Blacamán the Good: Vendor of Miracles".

Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

The novel was adapted to the 1983

1983 in film

-Events:*February 11 - The Rolling Stones concert film Let's Spend the Night Together opens in New York*May 25 - Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, the final film in the original Star Wars trilogy, is released. Like the previous films, it goes on to become the top grossing picture of...

 art film Eréndira

Eréndira

Eréndira is a 1983 Mexican drama film directed by Ruy Guerra. It was entered into the 1983 Cannes Film Festival. It is based on the short story The Incredible and Sad Tale of Innocent Eréndira and Her Heartless Grandmother by Gabriel García Márquez....

, directed by Ruy Guerra

Ruy Guerra

Ruy Alexandre Guerra Coelho Pereira is a film director, screenwriter, film editor, and actor in Brazil. Guerra was born a Portuguese citizen in Lourenço Marques in Moçambique, when it was still a colony of Portugal....

. Irene Papas

Irene Papas

Irene Papas is a Greek actress and occasional singer, who has starred in over seventy films in a career spanning more than fifty years.-Life:...

 acted as the Grandmother and Claudia Ohana as Eréndira.

External links

• Book review in The New Yorker