El coronel no tiene quien le escriba (No one writes to the Colonel)

This short novel written by Gabriel García Márquez in 1961 tells the story of an old colonel, whose name we'll never know, who has lived his last 50 years waiting for a letter that is supposed to arrive with next Friday's mail. This letter will come along with an important economical compensation for his merits in the army, under the orders of Aureliano Buendía, a character that is mentioned a few times along the novel and becomes one of the members of the Buendía family in A hundred years of solitude (1967).
In fact, it's not until now (while writing this post) that I found out that the Colonel was written before the solitude! Not only that, but also Macondo, the village where the Colonel lives, which is also the setting where all the 100 years of solitude unfolded, appeared for the first time in other two of his works back in 1955.

However..., I had read A hundred years of solitude before, and for some reason it was nice to go back to this decadent village where everything is static, stuffy, dusty and ruined.
Although written, as it was, six years before the solitude, this story takes place about 50 years after Aureliano Buendía's death, which might be about 30 years after the end of the hundred years of solitude (and about 150 years after the foundation of Macondo, whose decadency we attend along that novel).

It's funny, though.
If we take the facts chronologically according to the story, we have that a certain José Arcadio Buendía founded a village named Macondo. Somewhere along the future generations of his descendents we find an honorable general called Aureliano Buendía. During the glory days of Macondo, the so called Banana Boom, the Americans come to the village and settle their banana plantations. But Macondo was fated from the very day of its foundation, and eventually the Americans will leave. Decades after its slow but inexorable decadency, and also decades after general Aureliano's death, we find our unnamed colonel, walking the same ruined streets and alleys. Which is to say, after a few decades of not having news from Macondo, we find out that the village remained just the way we left it, and there's still someone alive to remember the Buendía family with us.
If, on the other hand, we take the facts chronologically according to our reality, we find that one fine day, during a train trip, García Márquez passed by a banana plantation named Macondo that got his attention for some reason. After that, in 1955, he mentions the village for the first time in two works (that I haven't read). Then, in 1961, he puts our coronel in a ruined Macondo, though he recalls those glory days following general Aureliano's orders. And finally, in 1967, he decides to tell us the whole story of Macondo and its founding family.

Anyways, all this was just the excitement of my discovery!
Let's talk about the novel..., though there's not much more to talk about without spoiling it, so I will just say this: it's not thrilling. Solitude, misery and old age are the main topics. It's a very well written short story that is nevertheless very slowly unfolded, in a village where nothing happens, where nothing has happened since we left it 30 years ago.
You don't need to read the solitude first, but you most probably will enjoy this one better if you did. Which, again, is funny, if we have in mind that it wasn't written until six years after...