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British novelist Martin Amis dies at 73

Martin Amis, one of the most celebrated British novelists of his generation, has died aged 73.

He died of oesophageal cancer at his Florida home, the New York Times said, quoting his wife, the writer Isabel Fonseca.

Amis is best known for his 1984 novel Money and the 1989 work London Fields.

He authored dozens of novels and 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 Kingsley Amis. The younger Amis followed in his father’s footsteps with his first novel, the Rachel Papers.

Published in 1973 while he was working at the Times Literary Supplement, it follows the exploits of a teenage boy in London before university and won the Somerset Maugham award.

Amis went on to publish a string of notable works, including Money, London Fields, and Time’s Arrow, and was a contemporary of other celebrated writers like James Fenton and Ian McEwan.

His close relationship with the journalist Christopher Hitchens, who died of oesophageal cancer in 2011, was well-documented.

They belonged to a colourful set which reinvigorated the British literary scene and has been credited with inspiring a generation of younger writers.

Amis’s work was often characterised by its darkly comic subject matter and satire. He frequently returned to the subject of the Holocaust throughout his career.

He also wrote two short story collections, six non-fiction books and a memoir. He was known as a public intellectual and an often controversial commentator on current affairs and politics.

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