 The novel was published in 1989 , when the Soviet Union was disintegrating and the political map was being radically redrawn . Reviewing The General in His Labyrinth in 1990 , the novelist Margaret Atwood pointed to another instance of García Márquez raising political issues through the character of the General . He has him tell his aide that the United States is " omnipotent and terrible , and that its tale of liberty will end in a plague of <unk> for us all " . Atwood noted the contemporary relevance of this sentiment , since " the patterns of Latin American politics , and of United States intervention in them , have not changed much in 160 years . " She suggested that García Márquez 's <unk> of Bolívar is a lesson " for our own turbulent age ... <unk> have a long history of eating their <unk> . " The central character is a man at the end of his life , who has seen his revolution and dream of a united Latin America fail . 
