Judging by the standing-room only crowd greeting the Miami Herald columnist recently at the World Bank's bookstore, his assessment of the region resonates outside of Latin America.

Eduardo Galeano, one of the continent's most eminent writers and a self-confessed football lover described him in Soccer in Sun and shadow.

Alejo Carpentier, the most important writer in the 20th century of Cuba, was a key figure of the modern Latin American Literature along with Jorge Luis Borges, Garcia Marquez and Vargas Llosa.