Gabriel Garcia Marquez is Suffering From Alzheimer's Disease

Posted on July 7, 2012

Nobel Prize-winning novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez is suffering from dementia, according to his brother Jaime Garcia Marquez, a civil engineer. The Telegraph reports that Jaime told a group of students at a lecture in Cartagena that his older brother calls him often to ask basic questions. He told his students, "He has problems with his memory. Sometimes I cry because I feel like I'm losing him....He is doing well physically, but he has been suffering from dementia for a long time."

Garcia Marquez is most famous for his novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude. The novel has sold more than 20 million copies and has been translated into 37 languages. His work has often explored senility and mental illness. Garcia Marquez's mother and and younger brother suffered from Alzheimer's.

Update: Marquez died in Mexico at age 87. Here's a look back at the life of the Nobel Prize winner by CNN's Rafael Romo: