Which Gabriel García Márquez novella features a drowned man named Esteban?

The novella featuring a drowned man named Esteban is Gabriel García Márquez’s “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World.”

Published in Spanish in 1968, this magical-realist short story begins when children discover a gigantic corpse washed onto a fishing village’s beach. The villagers initially know nothing about him, but an old woman decides that his name must have been Esteban.

As the villagers prepare the body for burial at sea, they imagine the extraordinary life he might have lived. His immense size makes their own homes seem cramped and their community seem small and barren. The dead stranger gradually becomes part of the village’s shared identity.

The story is sometimes confused with “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings,” another García Márquez tale involving an uncanny outsider. That story concerns a winged old man found in a family’s courtyard, not a drowned man named Esteban. After Esteban’s burial, the villagers resolve to widen their doors, brighten their houses, and plant flowers in his memory.