Author Gabriel Garcia Marquez has dementia

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CARTAGENA, Colombia, July 7 (UPI) -- Colombian author and Nobel literature laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez is suffering from dementia and has been forced to stop writing, his brother announced.

The 84-year-old author, best known for the novel "One Hundred Years of Solitude," which has sold more than 30 million copies, is currently in the middle of writing his autobiography, The Daily Telegraph reported Saturday. Brother Jaime Garcia Marquez told students at a lecture in Cartagena his brother no longer has the mental faculties to complete the book, "Living to Tell the Tale."

"He is doing well physically, but he has been suffering from dementia for a long time," he said. "From a physical standpoint he's doing well, although he now has some memory lapses" that have been made worse by a battle with lymphatic cancer in 1999.

"Dementia runs in our family and he's now suffering the ravages prematurely due to the cancer that put him almost on the verge of death," he said.

Garcia Marquez, who lives in Mexico, was a pioneer of the literary school of magical realism, producing the novels "Love in the Time of Cholera," "Chronicle of a Death Foretold" and "The General in His Labyrinth."

"He still has the humor, joy and enthusiasm that he has always had," his brother told his students.