Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s brother said the iconic author has dementia, Colombia media reported Friday.
Speaking to a group of school children at Ruta Quetzal in Cartagena, Jaime Garcia confirmed rumors that his 85-year-old brother, who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1982, has dementia but remains in good physical condition.
“Our whole family suffers from senile dementia,” Garcia said. “I’m also starting to have small problems.” Colombian digital magazine Kien & Kue reported in June that the famous author had trouble recognizing the voices of his close friends on the phone.
Garcia said his brother’s dementia advanced after Marquez’s bout with lymphatic cancer in 1999. The chemotherapy Marquez received saved his life, Garcia said, but also damaged nuerons and “accelerated the process” of dementia. Marquez’s mother and brother both died of Alzheimer’s disease, the most common cause of dementia.