Edinburgh, 18th April 2014 (Venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro has lamented the death of Colombian author and Nobel-prize winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who passed away yesterday at 87 years of age.

The Venezuelan president joined other political and literary figures in paying tribute to the work and personality of the writer, who shot to fame with his 1967 book One Hundred Years of Solitude, and is credited with creating the genre of “magical realism”.

“[Gabriel Garcia Marquez] left his spiritual footprint stamped on the new era of our America. One hundred years of love for his eternal spirit,” Maduro wrote on Twitter.

The Colombian writer, who resided for much of his life in Mexico City as well as for three years in Caracas, was open about his leftist views, criticising Latin America’s social inequality and the human rights abuses of the region’s dictatorships. He maintained a long friendship with Fidel Castro and campaigned for peace in Colombia.

Garcia Marquez also expressed his support for the thought of Venezuela’s 19th century independence hero Simon Bolivar; the same ideas which influenced former Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez in his leadership of the country’s Bolivarian revolution.

“For me, the ideal of Bolivar is fundamental: the unity of Latin America. It’s the only cause that I’d be willing to die for,” Marquez told Newsweek in 1986.

Following an interview with Chavez shortly after his first election as Venezuelan president in 1998, Garcia Marquez said Chavez could either “save his country” or become “one more despot”.

In tribute to Garcia Marquez’ political ideas and activities, Maduro wrote that the writer was a “sincere and loyal friend of the revolutionary leaders that raised the dignity of Bolivar and Marti’s America”.

“He [Garcia Marquez] belonged to the founding generation of creative journalism committed to the people’s right to happiness,” Maduro added.