We're deeply saddened to hear of the loss of Gabriel García Márquez, one of this century's most celebrated and cherished novelists. According to the Associated Press, the Nobel Prize–winning author passed away earlier today at the age of 87. "García Márquez's magical realist novels and short stories exposed tens of millions of readers to Latin America's passion, superstition, violence and inequality," they said in the announcement.
With titles like One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) and Love in the Time of Cholera (1985) among his best-known works, García Márquez leaves behind an incredible legacy.
García Márquez, who popularized the Latin American literary genre of magical realism, was considered the most legendary Spanish-language writer since Miguel de Cervantes; his work has outsold everything published in Spanish with the exception of the Bible. As the Los Angeles Times puts it, his death "represents the passing of one of the world's greatest living authors, and the loss of a powerful public intellectual." He will be sorely missed.
