The literary work of Gabriel García Márquez –which was studied by Mario Vargas Llosa as a graduate student at Complutense University of Madrid– has as background key events of the economic and political history of Colombia, being one of these events the Banana Massacres in 1928. A literary and historical analysis of this work makes possible to elaborate a map of the socio-economic life of the country, highlighting a specific region of Colombian society and a specific period: on the one hand, the state of Magdalena, and, on the other, the beginnings of the 20th century.