Gabriel Garcia Marquez, an immensely popular author in the Spanish-speaking world who won a Nobel Prize for Literature, has died at age 87. Last month, Marquez was admitted to the hospital and his health was monitored by his admirers around the globe.

Marquez’s health had been declining earlier this year and reports suggested that he was hospitalized in Mexico City due to dehydration and infections. Just earlier this week, a family spokesperson told CNN that his health had stabilized and that he was recovering at home.

However, The New York Daily News reports that local media and a source close to the family confirmed that he died. USA Today also reported his death.

Marquez was best known as Gaba and was born in Colombia, although he spent most of his life in Mexico. A journalist first, he became known for creating the magical realism genre in his novels. His best known work is One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) and his other key works include Autumn of the Patriarch (1975) and Love in the Time of Cholera (1987).

He didn’t set out to keep his books pigeonholed in one genre. “In every book I try to make a different path…One doesn't choose the style,” he told the New York Times in 1988, notes USA Today. “You can investigate and try to discover what the best style would be for a theme. But the style is determined by the subject, by the mood of the times.”

He is survived by his wife and two sons. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos offered his condolences to Marquez’s family on Twitter.