Nobel Prize winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez passes away at 87

MEXICO CITY, April 17 -- Nobel Prize winning Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez passed away Thursday in his home in Mexico City at the age of 87, local media reported.

Colombian Ambassador to Mexico Jose Gabriel Ortiz confirmed the news.

The author of the famed novel "One Hundred Years of Solitude," a groundbreaking work of literature that introduced the world to magic realism, had been checked into a hospital on April 3 to be treated for "dehydration and bronchial and urinary tract infections."

Almost a week later, the 1992 Nobel laureate was released into the care of his family, though both doctors and family members acknowledged that his condition was "delicate."

Garcia Marquez, who worked as a reporter for many years before dedicating himself to writing fiction, had been living in Mexico City since the 1960s.

A master of magic realism, along with Latin American writers Julio Cortazar, Juan Rulfo, Carlos Fuentes and Mario Vargas Llosa, Garcia Marquez, wrote numerous well-known novels, including "No One Writes to the Colonel" and "Autumn of the Patriarch."

"One Hundred Years of Solitude," his masterpiece published in 1967, has been translated into 35 languages and sold more than 30 million copies.