Garcia Marquez breaks his writer’s block

When the Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel Garcia Marquez (pictured) confessed that he was suffering from a very severe case of writer's block two years ago many of his admirers suspected there would be no more novels forthcoming. However, a close friend and collaborator of the 82-year-old Colombian novelist, fellow writer Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza, has revealed that Garcia Marquez's muse has returned and that he is currently putting the finishing touches to a love story.

While this is good news, Mendoza tells the Guardian it has not been an easy book to write. "He has four versions of it. He told me that he was now trying to get the best from each of them."

In a rare interview in January 2006, Garcia Marquez, a pioneer of the Magic Realism school and the author the 1967 best-seller One Hundred Years of Solitude, admitted he was having difficulties getting the words onto paper. He attributed this to personal problems - he has been suffering from lymphatic cancer – and the fact that he was having difficulty operating his computer.

He admitted, though, that his problem was more one of enthusiasm than inspiration. "With all the practice I've got, I'd have no problems writing a new novel," he explained. "But people notice if you haven't put your heart into it."

Rumours have been circulating for some time that he was at work and close to finishing a new novel, but Mendoza’s is the first bona fide confirmation. However, fans of Marquez should not hold their breath: the Carmen Balcells literary agency, which represents him, said that no publication date had been set for the new work. His last novel, Memories of my Melancholy Whores, was published in 2004.