Fidel Castro 'dismayed' by death of Gabriel García Márquez

Cuban first vice-president says former leader 'feels the loss of his friends', after Castro's silence fuels rumours about his own health

Associated Press in Havana

theguardian.com, Friday 25 April 2014 19.04 BST

Fidel Castro was hit hard by last week's death of long-time friend and Nobel prize-winning Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez, Cuba's first vice-president said on Friday.

Speaking in Havana as he signed a book of condolence at the Colombian embassy, Miguel Diaz-Canel said Castro was dismayed.

"Fidel is a man of great human sensibility, so he feels the loss of his friends," Diaz-Canel told reporters. "But he is also a man who is very seasoned by all the battles he has had to fight … he also has a resilience for such problems."

The former Cuban president, now 87, has not commented publicly on the author's death, though he sent flowers to a memorial ceremony in Mexico City, where the author lived for the final three decades of his life.

The two were close for years after García Márquez travelled to Cuba to work for Prensa Latina, the state news agency which was founded by Che Guevara.

Castro's silence fuelled yet another round of rumours on social media about the health of the 87-year-old former leader, who was forced from office in 2006 by a near-fatal intestinal illness.

He also kept mum for days after the deaths last year of two others he considered close friends: Nelson Mandela of South Africa and Hugo Chávez of Venezuela.

Castro, 87, retired from the Cuban presidency for good in 2008 and rarely appears in public now. Last year he all but stopped writing once-regular opinion pieces that were carried across Cuban state media.

"His health is very good. He is working intensely," Diaz-Canel said.

The vice-president saluted García Márquez for his "literary greatness", his support for the Cuban revolution and his friendship with Castro.

Diaz-Canel is the first high-level Cuban official to speak publicly about García Márquez since the author of One Hundred Years of Solitude and other renowned novels died on 17 April in Mexico City, aged 87.