18/04/2014 09:10
Author Gabriel Garcia Marquez dies
Nobel prize-winning Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez has died in Mexico aged 87, the BBC reported, citing his family.
Garcia Marquez was considered one of the greatest Spanish-language authors, best known for his masterpiece of magical realism, One Hundred Years of Solitude.
The 1967 novel sold more than 30 million copies and he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982.
Garcia Marquez had been ill and had made few public appearances recently.
He achieved fame for pioneering magical realism, a unique blending of the marvellous and the mundane in a way that made the extraordinary seem routine.
With his books, he brought Latin America's charm and teaming contradictions to life in the minds of millions of people.
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.