MEXICO CITY – Mexican writer German Dehesa, winner of the 2008 Don Quixote Prize awarded by the government of Castilla-La Mancha, died of cancer at his home in Mexico City, days after making the illness public in his newspaper column, the daily Reforma, to which he was a contributor, said. He was 66.

Also a playwright, he was born on July 1, 1944 in the Mexican capital and received from King Juan Carlos the Don Quixote Prize in May 2008 for the article “Ah, Que Tiempos!” (Ah, What Times!), also published in Reforma, in which he creatively described a number of idiosyncratic Mexicanisms.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon and his wife, Margarita Zavala, expressed in a communique their “deepest condolences for the lamentable passing of the writer and journalist...that has occurred (Thursday).”

The communique sent by the presidential press office also said that the “Calderon Zavala family shares the sorrow afflicting the family of this great author, who with his characteristic humor enriched the literature and reporting of contemporary Mexico.”

The president and his wife also expressed to the writer’s family their “solidarity in these moments of sorrow, hoping you may find comfort following this irreparable loss.”

Dehesa said in his last newspaper column, entitled “Gazeta del Angel” (Angel’s Gazette), that doctors gave him until the end of the year to live, but that he was hoping to give them each enough money so they would extend the period at least until 2020.

Dehesa wrote 11 books and six plays, including “Las Nuevas Aventuras de El Principito” (The New Adventures of The Little Prince), “Los PRIsidentes” (The PRIsidents), and “Fallaste, Corazon!” (You Failed, Heart!).

He studied chemical engineering and Hispanic literature at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, or UNAM, where he served as a professor for more than 25 years. EFE