LONDON: Martin Amis, one of his generation’s most renowned British authors, passed away at the age of 73.
According to his wife, author Isabel Fonseca, he passed away from oesophageal cancer at his Florida residence.
Amis is well known for his 1989 book London Fields and his 1984 book Money.
He wrote 14 novels as well as a number of non-fiction publications, and he is regarded as one of the most significant authors of his time.
He was the son of author and poet Sir Kingsley Amis, and he was born in Oxford in 1949.
The younger Amis, who graduated from Oxford University with his debut novel The Rachel Papers, continued in his father’s literary legacy.
It was published in 1973 while he was working at the Times Literary Supplement and, like his father’s debut book, it recounts the amorous adventures of a young man in London before entering college. It also received the Somerset Maugham Award for fiction.
Amis shared a generation with renowned authors including Salman Rushdie, James Fenton, and Ian McEwan.
It is commonly known that he had a strong friendship with journalist Christopher Hitchens, who passed away in 2011 from oesophageal cancer.
They belonged to a vibrant group that revived the British literary landscape and is recognised for having influenced a new generation of authors.
Rushdie paid homage to Amis by telling the New Yorker that he used to remark that he wanted to leave behind a shelf of books so he could say, “From here to here, it’s me.”His voice has now stopped. His buddies are going to miss him a lot. However, we do have a shelf.
“He was an influence to me personally and a standard-bearer for my age of authors, Sir Kazuo Ishiguro, his contemporary,” told the BBC. For all the biting cynicism and clever swagger of his work, there was always a tenderness and a desire for love and connection just beneath the surface. His creations will endure the different changes in mores and trends.
