Mexico Bids Farewell to Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Famed Adopted Son Postmedia News
go to original April 22, 2014

Thousands of people have been paying their last respects to Colombian novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Al Jazeera's Lucia Newman reports from Mexico City. (Al Jazeera)

MEXICO CITY — Long into the night, the line of mourners stretched for nearly a mile, waiting their turn to file into Mexico City’s majestic Palace of Fine Arts and bid farewell to Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the Colombian Nobel laureate considered one of the greatest Spanish-language authors of all time.

Garcia Marquez, who died Thursday at age 87, was eulogized in a brief ceremony Monday evening in the dramatic art deco lobby by the presidents of both Mexico and Colombia, two countries linked by the writer through his birth, life, heritage and career. Though he was born in Colombia, Garcia Marquez lived in Mexico for decades and wrote some of his best-known works here, including One Hundred Years of Solitude.

“We come as admirers and friends of Gabo from all corners of the planet,” Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said, using the nickname by which the writer was known throughout Latin America. “He will live on in his books and writings. But more than anything he will live forever in the hopes of humanity.”

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto said the death was “a great loss not only for literature but for humanity. Various generations … found answers to the questions of life in his stories and tales.”

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