British writer Martin Amis died at the age of 73

British writer Martin Amis has died at the age of 73, according to his publisher.

Dubbed “the erstwhile Mick Jagger of British letters”, Amis came from a privileged background as the son of novelist Kingsley Amis. Yet he was attracted to the dirty underbelly of society.

According to his publisher, Vintage Books, Amis defined “what it means to be a literary prodigy,” influenced “a generation of prose stylists,” and was known for “often summing up entire eras with his books“.

In his best-known works, he mocked the excesses of Margaret Thatcher’s Britain, Money – with his debauched anti-hero John Self – and London Fields. He exposed the crimes of Lenin and Stalin Koba the Dreadand he dealt with the Holocaust in his novel published in 1991 The arrow of time, an account of the life of a German doctor in the Auschwitz death camp. He then returned to the subject in his 2014 novel The field of interest.

Vintage Books said in a statement: “We are shocked by the death of our author and friend.” He has been working at the imprint since the publication of his debut novel The Rachel Papers In 1973, at the age of 24.

Amis died of esophageal cancer Friday at his home in Florida, according to his agent, Andrew Wylie, AP reported.

In 2013, the FT asked about the writing process The arrow of time, said, “Writing is about freedom, and freedom cannot be divided. And there is no philosophical or literary criticism to say that we stand at the gates of Auschwitz and cannot enter.”

After moving to the United States from England, he said he missed “the British wit.”

“The British are very tolerant and generous, but witty. Americans are tolerant and generous, but they are not – they are a little more serious, a little more stubborn in their thinking,” he said.

Commenting on the death of his close friend and fellow writer Christopher Hitchens, who also died of oesophageal cancer, he said: “His love of life was so strong that he seems to have passed on to his friends – and his wife – the responsibility to increase his own love of life. You feel you have to do it on his behalf.”

Michal Shavit, UK editor of Vintage Books, said: “It’s hard to imagine a world without Martin Amis. He was the king – stylist extraordinaire, super cool, brilliantly witty, erudite and fearless writer.”

Dan Franklin, his former British editor, called Amis “the coolest, funniest, most quotable and most beautiful writer in the British literary firmament”.

Further meaning of AP