Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the much loved Colombian author of "One Hundred Years of Solitude" and many other books is claimed to be in the throes of senility and old age. According to the novelist Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza, a novelist and journalist who wrote "The Fragrance of Guava" with Marquez, the 85-year-old author may be sick with Alzheimer's disease.

The Huffington Post reports that Mendoza told a Colombian magazine the following, "Last time we spoke he would forget certain things. He would ask me 'when did you get here? Where are you staying' and he kept repeating things. Instead, we went out to lunch and we reminisced about events that happened 30 or 40 years ago and his memory was as sharp as ever." 

Garcia is a private person and has not made too many public appearances in recent years. In 1999, he was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer but through treatment he was able to beat the disease.

The Huffington Post reports that there have been many rumors about the health of Marquez including most recently in May of this year with "a death hoax, which originated from a fake Twitter account using the name of Umberto Eco, the Italian writer. The fake news of Garcia Marquez's death went viral and inundated the web. Jaime Abello Banfi, the director of the Gabriel García Márquez Foundation for New Journalism, and the Colombian news site, Noticas RCN."

The rumors are testament to the many adoring fans of Marquez around the world. The author is most well-known for his use of magic realism, a literary device where imaginary worlds intersect with real ones in a complex web of extraordinary events.  For many Colombians, Marquez is viewed as a national treasure.

Marquez won the 1982 Nobel Prize for Literature and he is the earliest remaining living recpient of the prize.