Gabriel Garcia Marquez dies in Mexico aged 87

Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez has died in Mexico aged 87, his family has announced.

Gabriel 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 30 million copies and he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982.

Gabriel 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.

“Mercedes and her sons, Rodrigo and Gonzalo, have authorized to give me the information. Such deep sadness,” she added.

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,” Juan Manuel Santos wrote.

The cause of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s death was not immediately known but he was recently hospitalized 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. He had lived in Mexico for more than 30 years.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s other novels include Love in the Time of Cholera, Chronicle of a Death Foretold and the The General in His Labyrinth.