"Marquez has insights and sympathies which he can project with the intensity of a reflecting mirror in a bright sun.No One Writes to the Colonel is a masterly picture of despair and optimism whose vivid alterations seem to characterize so much of Latin American life.He dazzles us with powerful, effect"

--New Statesman

In a decaying Colombian town the Colonel and his sick wife are living from day to day,scraping together funds for food and medicine. Each Friday the Colonel waits for a letter to come in the post, hoping for the pension he is owed that will change their lives. While he waits the Colonel puts his hopes in his rooster - a prize bird that will make him money when cockfighting comes into season. But until then the bird - llke the-Colonel and his ailing wife must somehow be fed…