MADRID, Spain (AP) – Nobel Prize-winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who rarely offers glimpses into his private life, says he has stopped writing – for the time being, at least.

“The year 2005 was the first in my life when I did not write a single line,” the 78-year-old author was quoted as saying in Sunday’s edition of the Barcelona-based daily La Vanguardia.

“I haven’t sat before a computer. And besides, I have no prospect or prospects to do it. I had never stopped writing, this is the first year in my life I haven’t done any writing,” he said.

Garcia Marquez is best known for “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” which earned him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982, and “Love in the Time of Cholera.” In 2002, he published “Living to Tell the Tale,” the first volume of an autobiography. His latest novel, “Memories of My Melancholy Whores,” came out last year.

Garcia Marquez said there might be another book in him – if inspiration strikes – but he’s not optimistic.

“With the practice I have, I could write another novel without further problems, but people notice when one has not put the guts in it,” he said.

—

DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) – Muhammad Ali was honored at the World Economic Forum for his efforts to promote dialogue and understanding between the Muslim and Western worlds.

Accompanied by his wife, Yolanda, Ali received the first-ever prize from the Council of 100 Leaders, a group formed at the forum’s annual meeting two years ago to promote understanding between the West and Muslims.

Britain’s former archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey of Clifton, who is on the Council of 100, recalled Ali’s boxing career and his public acknowledgment of having Parkinson’s Disease.

“Who among us was not stirred and moved … as he lit the flame at the start of the 1996 Olympic games in Atlanta?” he asked.

And as he repeated the boxer’s famous mantra – “I float like a butterfly and sting like a bee!” – Ali lashed out with a quick left jab.

His wife, Yolanda, gave a speech to accept the award as Ali sat back down Saturday.

“Even though his voice is silent,” she said, choking back tears, “dialogue is not always verbal. Sometimes it’s about gestures, interaction.”

—

On the Net:

http://www.weforum.org/c100

—

KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) – The Barbershop Harmony Society could be singing a different tune – country-style – with its decision to relocate to Nashville.

Nashville beat out the Dallas-Fort Worth area and the Milwaukee-Chicago corridor after a four-year search for a new hometown.

“Nashville’s reputation as ‘Music City USA’ connects our musical art form with many other resources to advance our mission and vision,” said Ed Watson, the society’s executive director.

The society, founded in 1938, is the world’s largest all-male singing organization, with 30,000 members in more than 800 chapters in North America. It employs 28 people.

It’s formally known as the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barbershop Quartet Singing in America.

Watson said the move would not be made until 2007, extending the society’s Kenosha stay to 50 years.

The group’s board made its decision last week.

—

On the Net:

http://www.barbershop.org

AP-ES-01-29-06 1357EST