 Jorge Zalamea , El gran Burundún Burundá ha muerto ( " The Great Burundún Burundá is Dead " , 1951 ) . For Keefe Ugalde , " El gran Burundún Burundá ... occupies an important midway point in the evolution of the dictator novel " and Peter <unk> emphasizes " its cultural and political importance and subsequent influence on dictator narratives . " More broadly , Martin describes this " remarkable Colombian novelette " as seeming to contain " the seeds of García Márquez 's mature style . " The book describes the ( fictional ) dictator " Burundún 's rise to power , selected events during his regime , and a description of his funeral . " It is at this funeral that it is revealed that the body of the dictator is absent , and has somehow been replaced by or transformed into " a great big parrot , a voluminous parrot , an enormous parrot , all swollen , inflated and wrapped in documents , gazettes , mail from abroad , newspapers , reports , annals , broadsheets , almanacs , official bulletins . " 
