World reacts to death of Gabriel Garcia Marquez

A couple takes a photo of a portrait of Colombian Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez in front of the Casa de la Moneda Museum in downtown Bogota, Colombia, Thursday, April 17, 2014. Garcia Marquez died in Mexico City on Thursday. The author was among Latin America’s most popular writers and widely considered the father of a literary style known as magic realism. (AP Photo/Diana Sanchez)

Reaction to death of writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez:

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“A thousand years of loneliness and sadness for the death of the greatest Colombian of all time!” — Colombia President Juan Manuel Santos.

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“With the passing of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the world has lost one of its greatest visionary writers – and one of my favorites from the time I was young … I offer my thoughts to his family and friends, whom I hope take solace in the fact that Gabo’s work will live on for generations to come.” — U.S. President Barack Obama.

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“A great man has died, one whose works gave the literature of our language great reach and prestige,” Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa, who had once famously feuded with Garcia Marquez.

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“One would really have to go back to Dickens to find a writer of the highest literary quality who commanded such extraordinary power over whole populations.” — British novelist Ian McEwan, to the BBC.

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“On behalf of Mexico, I express my sadness for the death of one the greatest writers of our time: Gabriel Garcia Marquez.” — Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto.

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“From the time I read ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ more than 40 years ago, I was always amazed by his unique gifts of imagination, clarity of thought, and emotional honesty … I was honored to be his friend and to know his great heart and brilliant mind for more than 20 years.” — former U.S. President Bill Clinton.

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“His unique characters and exuberant Latin America will remain marked in the hearts and memories of his millions of readers.” — Brazlian President Dilma Rousseff

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“He is like the Mandela of literature because of the impact that he has had on readers all over the world. His influence is universal, and that is a very rare thing.” — Cristobal Pera, editorial director of Penguin Random House in Mexico.

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“Thank you, master Gabo. Have a tranquil trip and that you always remain alive among us.” — Jaime Abello Banfi, director general of Garcia Marquez’s Iberoamerican Foundation for New Journalism.

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“He had the capacity to see stories that many of us have in front of us and don’t even notice. He was unique in that.” — Nicaraguan writer Sergio Ramirez Mercado.

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“In recent times it wasn’t easy to communicate with him, although he understood and continued the conversation. He was always loving and generous and extraordinarily clever.” — Rafael Tovar y de Teresa, director of Mexico’s National Council for Culture and the Arts.

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“Gabo has left us and we will have years of solitude. But his works and his love for the motherland remain. Farewell until the victory, dear Gabo.” — Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa.

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“If you’ve read him, you know that he’s not really gone. He is in an afterlife of his own creation, his own Macondo.” — Edwidge Danticat, a Haitian-American author.

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“Cuba suffers from this death, as do all readers of a writer who is an icon.” — Miguel Barnet, Cuban author and essayist.