Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Gabriel Garcia Marquez gestures as he arrives on a train to Aracataca, Colombia, the first time he returned to his hometown after winning the Nobel Prize in literature in 1982.  (Jairo Castilla / Associated Press)

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, left, signs the visitors’ book at Ernest Hemingway’s former home in Havana, Cuba, with American writer Arthur Miller, right, as part of a 2000 trip aimed at promoting contacts between intellectuals of the U.S. and Cuba.  (Jose Goitia / Associated Press)

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, right, congratulates Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes during a celebration for Fuentes’ 80th birthday in Mexico City.  (Ronaldo Schemidt / AFPGetty Images)

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, sitting with his wife, Mercedes Barcha, is asked by admirers to dedicate their books before boarding the train to visit his hometown of Aracataca, Colombia, for the first time in 20 years.  (Alejandra Vega / AFP/Getty Images)

Even though Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s blending of fantasy and outrageous facts “told with a straight face,” as he once put it, was pioneered by Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier, Mexico’s Juan Rulfo and Argentina’s Jorge Luis Borges, he lifted the technique from obscurity with the publication of “One Hundred Years of Solitude” in 1967.  (Ronaldo Schemidt / AFP/Getty Images)

Known for his opinions on Cuba, military dictatorship and Latin American cultural autonomy, Gabriel Garcia Marquez counted among his friends Bill Clinton, French President Francois Mitterrand and the dictators Omar Torrijos of Panama and Fidel Castro of Cuba.  (Katherine Young / Getty Images)

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, left, is shown with former Cuban President Fidel Castro and movie director Fernando Birri during the inauguration of the International School of Cinema in San Antonio de los Banos, Havana.  (Adalberto Roque / AFP/Getty Images)