Colombian author and Nobel laureate, Gabriel García Márquez, has reportedly been hospitalized in Mexico City after suffering from a lung and urinary tract infection. According to federal health officials and the renown novelist's son, García Márquez is responding to the treatment.
Mexico's Secretary of Health issued a statement on Thursday revealing that the 87-year-old was brought to the hospital on Monday. "The patient has responded to treatment. Once he's completed his course of antibiotics his discharge from the hospital will be evaluated," the statement said.
García Márquez's son, Gonzalo, has gone on record to say that there was no medical emergency and that his father is slated to be released from the hospital early next week. "He went to a normal room," the son said. "He was never in the emergency room."
Mexican journalist and author Elena Poniatowska, a friend of García Márquez, told the Associated Press that she is aware of the author's hospitalization but does not know further details. Poniatowska explained that she saw the "One Hundred Years In Solitude" author in November and said that "he looked well."
In 2012, it was reported that García Márquez's health was on the decline. According to The Guardian, the author's brother, Jaime García Márquez, told students in Cartagena, Colombia that his brother is suffering from dementia and was treated for lymphatic cancer, which he was diagnosed with in 1999.
"Dementia runs in our family and he's now suffering the ravages prematurely due to the cancer that put him almost on the verge of death," said Jaime, reports The Guardian. "Chemotherapy saved his life, but it also destroyed many neurons, many defences and cells, and accelerated the process. But he still has the humour, joy and enthusiasm that he has always had."
García Márquez has lived in Mexico City for over 30 years, but has been staying out of the public eye as of late. Known by his friends as "Gabo," the author is considered to be the most popular Spanish language author since Miguel de Cervantes in the 17th century. The writer won the Nobel prize in 1982 and is best known for novels, including: One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), “Autumn of the Patriarch” (1975), “Love in the Time of Cholera” (1985).
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