Lovers of lost causes will delight in the latest Marquez, a historical novel in which Mr Magical Realism has jettisoned the fantastic trappings of his early books in favour of facts. These are not just any facts, of course: his subject, South America’s liberating hero General Simon Bolivar, belongs to the shady territory between myth and history, and as such is fair game for the subcontinent’s greatest romancer.

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