Famous and influential British author Martin Amis has passed away, aged 73, at his house in Lake Worth, Florida.

His wife Isabel Fonseca said to the media on Saturday that the writer of sharp and perceptive works such as Money: A Suicide Note, London Fields, and Time’s Arrow, died on Friday after a struggle with oesophageal cancer.

Amis was “one of the most praised and debated writers of the last 50 years and the author of 14 novels,” said the website of Booker Prizes, the leading literary prizes for fiction in the United Kingdom.

In 2008, he was one of the 50 best British writers since 1945 and nominated for the Booker Prize twice.

Publisher Vintage Books said it was “heartbroken” by the death of Amis.

“He leaves a huge legacy and a lasting impression on the British cultural scene, and will be greatly missed,” Vintage said on its Twitter account.

The writer became a literary star in the 1980s as British fiction flourished, making Amis famous along with novelists such as Salman Rushdie, Julian Barnes, Kazuo Ishiguro and Ian McEwan.