One Hundred Years of Solitude author Gabriel García Márquez passed away last week at the age of 87. Writing in the New Yorker, Edwidge Danticat reflects on his life and work.

I am often surprised when people talk about the total implausibility of the events in García Márquez’s fiction. Having been born and lived in a deeply spiritual and extraordinarily resourceful part of the Caribbean, a lot of what might seem magical to others often seems quite plausible to me.