Martin Amis, British writer of dark comedic novels, dies at 73
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British author Martin Amis at home in Brooklyn in May 2012.
PHOTO: NYTIMES
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WASHINGTON – Martin Amis, a British writer of dark comedic novels, has died at the age of 73, his publisher said last Saturday on Twitter.
Penguin Books said Amis “leaves a towering legacy and an indelible mark on the British cultural landscape, and will be missed enormously”.
Amis died last Friday at his home in Lake Worth, Florida, The New York Times reported earlier, quoting his wife Isabel Fonseca as saying the cause was oesophageal cancer.
In 2008, Amis – author of 14 novels including Money: A Suicide Note, London Fields and Time’s Arrow – was named one of 50 best British writers since 1945. He was listed for the Booker Prize twice.
Amis, often called one of the most innovative voices of his generation, was the son of the late British author Kingsley Amis, the subject of his 2000 memoir Experience. He moved to the United States in 2011.
Amis’ first novel, The Rachel Papers, was published when he was 23. He worked as an editor at The Times Literary Supplement and later the literary editor of The New Statesman.
He told Reuters in 2012 that he was happiest with his most recent novel at the time, Lionel Asbo: State Of England, and less happy with its more celebrated predecessors “all the way down the line”.
He said over time, “what happens is your genius gets weaker and your talent gets stronger”.
In a 2020 interview with The New York Times, Amis said: “We read literature to have a good time. Not an easy time, necessarily, but not a hard time and not a bad time.” REUTERS
