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Author Gabriel Garcia Marquez dies | Author Gabriel Garcia Marquez dies |
(35 minutes later) | |
Nobel prize-winning Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez has died in Mexico aged 87, his family says. | Nobel prize-winning Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez has died in Mexico aged 87, his family says. |
Garcia Marquez was considered one of the greatest Spanish-language authors, best known for his masterpiece of magic realism, One Hundred Years of Solitude. | Garcia Marquez was considered one of the greatest Spanish-language authors, best known for his masterpiece of magic realism, One Hundred Years of Solitude. |
The 1967 novel sold more than 30m copies and he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982. | The 1967 novel sold more than 30m copies and he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982. |
Garcia Marquez had been ill and had made few public appearances recently. | Garcia Marquez had been ill and had made few public appearances recently. |
"Gabriel Garcia Marquez has died," a spokeswoman for the family, Fernanda Familiar, said on Twitter. | "Gabriel Garcia Marquez has died," a spokeswoman for the family, Fernanda Familiar, said on Twitter. |
"[His wife] Mercedes and her sons, Rodrigo and Gonzalo, have authorised me to provide the information. Such deep sadness," she added. | |
'Greatest Colombian' | 'Greatest Colombian' |
Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos also took to Twitter to pay tribute to the author. | Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos also took to Twitter to pay tribute to the author. |
"One Hundred Years of Solitude and sadness for the death of the greatest Colombian of all time," he wrote. | "One Hundred Years of Solitude and sadness for the death of the greatest Colombian of all time," he wrote. |
The cause of Garcia Marquez's death was not immediately known but he was recently hospitalised for a lung and urinary tract infection in Mexico City. | The cause of Garcia Marquez's death was not immediately known but he was recently hospitalised for a lung and urinary tract infection in Mexico City. |
He was sent home last week but his health was said to be "very fragile" because of his age. | |
The BBC's Will Grant in Mexico City says his loss will be particularly felt in his native Colombia but in Mexico too, which for more than 30 years became his adopted home. | |
Gabriel Garcia Marquez's other novels include Love in the Time of Cholera, Chronicle of a Death Foretold and The General in His Labyrinth. | |
Controversy | |
Affectionately known as "Gabo", the novelist was also an accomplished journalist whose reporting shone in his book News of a Kidnapping. | |
The non-fiction book recounted high-profile abductions by the Medellin drug cartel run by Pablo Escobar, a notorious Colombian drug lord who died in 1993. | |
He was at times a political figure too. His friendship with the former Cuban President, Fidel Castro, sparked some controversy among literary and political circles in Latin America. | |
But unlike other authors in the region, his work transcended Latin America with One Hundred Years of Solitude, which was translated into more than 30 languages. | |
The Chilean poet and Nobel Laureate Pablo Neruda called the novel "the greatest revelation in the Spanish language since Don Quixote", the 17th-century masterpiece by Spain's Miguel de Cervantes. |