Peres mourns death of 'great dreamer' Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Israeli president pays tribute to renowned Colombian witter and Nobel Laureate who prayed for Middle East peace.

By JPOST.COM STAFF
Gabriel Garcia Marquez. (photo credit: REUTERS)
Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
(photo credit: REUTERS)
President Shimon Peres mourned on Friday the death of Colombian novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who died on Thursday at the age of 87.
"The world has become a poorer place with the passing of the great dreamer who told such beautiful stories to our children and unveiled to us, the grown-ups, the real truth of the world," Peres said of the Nobel Laureate whom he had met in Colombia.
Garcia Marquez died at his home in Mexico City.
Peres noted Garcia Marquez as having advocated for Israeli-Palestinian peace.
"As long as your land is split, my heart is broken and I pray every day for your peace," Garcia Marquez had told the president.
The celebrated writer had also expressed his wish to visit Israel when peace between the sides was made.
The president eulogized the author saying "he will hover over the skies of Israel as a great message, an encouraging prayer."
Garcia Marquez's dynastic epic One Hundred Years of Solitude, helped him win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982. The master of magical realism penned many classics, including such works as Autumn of the Patriarch, Love in the Time of Cholera and Chronicle of a Death Foretold.
Reuters contributed to this report.