Big Mama's Funeral (original Spanish-language title: Los funerales de la Mamá Grande), a long short story, is a satirical commentary on Latin American life and culture by Gabriel García Márquez. Most of the place names mentioned come from Colombia. It displays the exaggeration associated with magic realism. "Big Mama" herself is an exaggeration of the 'cacique' (political boss), a familiar figure in Latin American history and tradition; the term itself comes from a Native American word for a tribal chief.
Big Mama's funeral is mentioned in Marquez's famous novel One Hundred Years of Solitude soon after Melquiades' death, an example of Marquez's tendency to tie together his literary works.
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Famous quotes containing the words big, mama and/or funeral:
“The little people must be sacred to the big ones, and it is from the rights of the weak that the duty of the strong is comprised.”
—Victor Hugo (18021885)
“My Mama has made bread
and Grampaw has come
and everybody is drunk
and dancing in the kitchen”
—Lucille Clifton (b. 1936)
“You scour the Bowery, ransack the Bronx,
Through funeral parlors and honky-tonks.
From river to river you comb the town
For a place to lay your family down.”
—Ogden Nash (19021971)