 Gabriel García Márquez 's The General in His Labyrinth ( El general en su laberinto , 1989 ) is a fictionalized account of the last days in the life of Simón Bolívar . Bolívar , also known as the Great Liberator , freed from Spanish rule the territory that would subsequently become Venezuela , Bolivia , Colombia , Peru , and Ecuador . However the character of the General is not portrayed as the glorious hero that traditional history has presented ; instead García Márquez develops a pathetic protagonist , a prematurely aged man who is physically ill and mentally exhausted . 
