The great Colombian novelist, and Nobel prize winner, Gabriel Garcia Marquez has died. Born on March 6, 1927, he was 87 years of age.

Marquez was widely regarded as one of the greatest writers of the 20th Century. He was one of the leading lights in South American literature and a pioneer of the style that became known as magical realism.

Marquez began his career as a journalist and worked for a period as a foreign correspondent, based in Barcelona. Having returned to Colombia, he was frequently outspoken in his criticism of the ruling elite in his home country.

In Evil Hour (1962) was his first novel and he wrote numerous others, including One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967); The Autumn of the Patriarch (1975); Love in the Time of Cholera (1985); The General in His Labyrinth (1989); Of Love and Other Demons (1994) and Memories of My Melancholy Whores (2004).

He made his breakthrough as a fiction writer with the epic One Hundred Years of Solitude, which was widely acclaimed and very successful.

"He was an outstanding writer and an extraordinary man," Niall Stokes, editor of Hot Press commented. "I remember encountering One Hundred Years of Solitude for the first time and being blown away by its power and grace. There is a rich sense of humanity to everything he wrote, an empathy with ordinary people that was unique to the man. He was on the side of the underdog at all times. But he also had an ability to see the good in people who might have been looked at askance by more conventional writers.

"In his fiction in particular, there is a rich vein of humour. HIs writing is brilliantly evocative, but also very playful and funny. The combination made reading his work one of the most complete pleasures available in literature."

He wrote numerous non-fiction works, among which the most celebrated was News Of A Kidnapping, about the world of the Medelin drug cartel, run by the infamous Pable Escobar. A one-time film critic, he was also a successful screenwriter.

He was described by the writer Carlos Fuentes as "perhaps the best writer in Spanish since Cervantes." There are few who would begrudge this great writer such lofty praise.