Martin Amis, one of the most celebrated British novelists of his generation, died at 73 yesterday, of oesophageal cancer, according his wife, the writer Isabel Fonseca.
Amis authored 14 novels and several non-fiction books, and is widely considered one of the most influential writers of his era. Born in 1949 in Oxford, he was the son of the novelist and poet Sir Kingsley Amis.
Amis is best known for his 1984 novel Money and the 1989 work London Fields, reports The Guardian.
The younger Amis followed in his father’s footsteps after graduating from Oxford University with his first novel The Rachel Papers. Published in 1973 while he was working at the Times Literary Supplement, it follows the romantic exploits of a teenage boy in London before university and won the Somerset Maugham Award for fiction.
His second novel, Dead Babies, published in 1975, charted a weekend of debauchery and showcased his extraordinary, lacerating use of language.
He was one of the key names on that era-defining first list of best British novelists under 40, famously chosen by Granta in 1983, and every decade since.
„His novels summed up eras”, says The Guardian. His work was often characterised by its darkly comic subject matter and satire.
He was also known as a public intellectual and an often controversial commentator on current affairs and politics.
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