(CNN) -- Gabriel García Márquez, the influential, Nobel Prize-winning author of "One Hundred Years of Solitude" and "Love in the Time of Cholera," has died, his family and officials said. He was 87. The literary giant was treated in April for infections and dehydration at a Mexican hospital. García Márquez, a native of Colombia, is widely credited with helping to popularize "magical realism," a genre "in which the fantastic and the realistic are combined in a richly composed world of imagination," as the Nobel committee described it upon awarding him the prize for literature in 1982. He was sometimes called the most significant Spanish-language author since Miguel de Cervantes, the 16th-century author of "Don Quixote" and one of the great writers in Western literature. Indeed, Chilean poet Pablo Neruda told Time that "One Hundred Years of Solitude" was "the greatest revelation in the Spanish language since the Don Quixote of Cervantes."
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NEW: Colombia's President declares three days of national mourning
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The 87-year-old is widely credited with helping to popularize "magical realism"
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García Márquez stands as one of the most honored authors on Earth
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The Colombian author died in Mexico City, where he lived
"We're left with the memories and the admiration to all @placeholder and also Mexicans because I think Gabo was half Mexican and half Colombian.