Macondo - the newly founded village where Jose Arcadio Buendia and his strong-willed wife Ursula have started their new life. As the mysterious Melquiades excites Aureliano Buendia and his father with new inventions and tales of adventure, neither can know the significance of the indecipherable manuscript that the old man passes into their hands.
Through plagues of insomnia, civil war, hauntings and vendettas, the many tribulationsof the Buendia household push memories of the manuscript aside. Few remember its existence, and only one will discover the hidden message that it holds...