Remains of Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez to be buried in northern Colombia

The ashes of Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez will be buried in the La Merced Cloister in Cartagena de Indias, northern Colombia, announced Juan Carlos Gossain, governor of the state of Bolivar, Tuesday.

"A bronze bust of the author, in which Gabo's ashes will lie, was sculpted and donated by Katie Murray, a British artist close to our Nobel laureate," said the governor at a press conference held in the day.

Garca Mrquez, born in March 1927 and commonly known as Gabo or Gabito throughout Latin America, started out as a journalist and wrote many literary works. His best known novels included One Hundred Years of Solitude, The Autumn of the Patriarch and Love in the Time of Cholera. He was awarded Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982.

He died on April 17, 2014 in Mexico City, the capital of Mexico, where he had lived since the 1960s. Since a state funeral was held for him in the capital, his ashes had remained there awaiting a decision over the final resting place for the late Colombian writer.

According to Gossain, Cartagena de Indias, or Cartagena, beat a number of other cities including Austin in the U.S. state of Texas, Mexico City, the national capital of Mexico, Bogota, the national capital of Colombia, to become the final resting place of Garcia Marquez based on the decision by his widow and children. Cartagena is considered the site of the family's ancestral home and of the foundation to train journalists from across Latin America.

The remains will arrive on Dec. 12 in Cartagena de Indias, where "Gabo" began his journalistic career in a local newspaper. Endite