Santiago Nasar, a young man running his father’s ranch, is going to be killed.  He lives there on the cattle ranch with his mother and the cook.  He dreams a lot –  about bird shit and almond trees, symbolizing death?  He woke up to bells and dreaming of a wedding.  But the Bishop is arriving. Santiago has guns – lots of guns, but they’re never loaded inside th house.  It’s a rule. 

Chronicle of a Death Foretold: A Novel
By Gabriel García Márquez,
Translated by Gregory Rabassa
1981 / 128 pp
Read by Bernardo de Paula: 2h 53m
Rating: A-  / classic 20th Century Guatemalan Lit 

The narrative is nonlinear! Sometimes the narrator reports the death as having already happened, as being in the past. Other times he reports the death as coming up with people predicting it, as being “foretold” by various citizens throughout the day. Santiago is happy and peaceful as he goes through his day.

The night before there was a wedding and wedding party and the groom took his bride home but returned her to her family the next day becasue he says she was not a virgin. She is beaten by her mother until she reveals the name of the guilty man. Her brothers vow to avenge their family honor. 

 Mom sees him in white and thinks that he’s going to die. It’s a premonition of some sort but Mom ignores it as it’s because of the pomp of the Bishop coming.  There are many people who “know” Santiago is going to be killed, but they don’t say anything each for his own reason. One woman actually wants him to die.