'Stylist supreme': Tributes pour in to Martin Amis following famed British novelist's death aged 73
20 May 2023, 21:10 | Updated: 20 May 2023, 23:44
Tributes have poured in for "stylist supreme" Martin Amis, following the renowned British novelist's death from cancer aged 73.
The author, who published 15 novels, died of oesophageal cancer on Friday home at his Florida home, his wife Isabel Fonseca said.
It was the same form of cancer that claimed the life of his close friend the journalist and author Christopher Hitchens in 2011.
Amis, the son of well-known novelist and poet Kingsley Amis, is best known for his era-defining novels London Fields and Money: A Suicide Note.
In a statement, his publisher Vintage Books said: "We are devastated at the death of our author and friend, Martin Amis: novelist, essayist, memoirist, critic, stylist supreme.
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"For 40 years Martin Amis bestrode the world of UK publishing: first by defining what it meant to be a literary wunderkind by releasing his first novel at just 24; influencing a generation of prose stylists; and often summing up entire eras with his books, perhaps most notably with his classic novel, Money.
"He continually engaged with current events and the contemporary world, never afraid to tackle the biggest issues and questions of the day, in books including The Second Plane and his essay collection, The Rub of Time.
"At the same time his work often explored key periods in history, notably the Holocaust, which he wrote about uniquely and powerfully in novels such as Time's Arrow and The Zone of Interest.
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"Throughout it all, his love of literature shone fiercely: Experience, The War Against Cliche and others all brought a light up to the world he'd inhabited his entire life."
The author's memoir Experience was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 2000, and he was shortlisted and longlisted for the Booker Prize with Time's Arrow and Yellow Dog respectively.
The Booker Prize tweeted: "We are saddened to hear that Martin Amis, one of the most acclaimed and discussed novelists of the past 50 years, has died.
"Our thoughts are with his family and friends."
Amis was born on 25 August 1949 in Oxford, and studied English at Exeter College, Oxford, graduating in 1971 with a congratulatory first.
His name was synonymous with a set of influential writers and close friends that included Hitchens, Salman Rushdie, James Fenton and Ian McEwan.
