"I've stopped writing. 2005 has been the first year of my life when I haven't written a line," the Colombian storyteller who revolutionised Latin American literature said in a rare interview with a newspaper at his home in Mexico City.

Garcia Marquez, who galvanised the world with his 1967 epic One Hundred Years of Solitude, is to be guest of honour at Britain's Hay on Wye international literary festival, which opens today in Colombia's Caribbean port of Cartagena, the writer's birthplace. "In practice, with the experience I have, I could write a new novel without any problem, but people would realise that I hadn't put my heart into it," he told Barcelona's La Vanguardia newspaper, which will publish the interview on Sunday.

Garcia Marquez's first volume of memoirs, Living to Tell the Tale, became a bestseller when it appeared in 2002. It was while working on the second volume that his creative juices dried up, he admitted. He blamed personal problems - now 78, he has been suffering from lymphatic cancer since 1999 - and, more prosaically, computer difficulties.

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A hero in his homeland, Garcia Marquez's legacy is cherished in the sleepy jungle village of Aracataca, his model for the imaginary Macondo of A Hundred Years. The village lies in the heartland of guerrilla territory, today's manifestation of Colombia's seemingly endless civil war that formed the political backdrop of the author's greatest novel.