Banks: ‘one of the country’s best-loved novelists’

Agencies/London

Iain Banks has died of cancer aged 59, his family said yesterday.

The Scottish author had announced that he was suffering with terminal gall bladder cancer on April 3 this year.

In his statement he said that he had developed a sore back in late January, but put this down to being “crouched over a keyboard all day”.

Blood tests in March revealed that he was terminally ill, and was not expected to live longer than a year.

Publishers had worked to bring the book forward so he could see it on the shelves following his announcement on his website that he had only months to live. “I am officially Very Poorly,” Banks announced with trademark black humour, explaining that the cancer had started in his gall bladder and spread to his liver, pancreas and lymph nodes. “The bottom line, now, I’m afraid, is that as a late stage gall bladder cancer patient, I’m expected to live for ‘several months’ and it’s extremely unlikely I’ll live beyond a year. So it looks like my latest novel, The Quarry, will be my last.”

Banks went on to say he had asked his partner Adele Hartley “if she would do me the honour of becoming my widow,” and that the couple had married in a private ceremony.

In a statement, his publisher said he was “an irreplaceable part of the literary world”.

Little, Brown Book Group called the author “one of the country’s best-loved novelists” for both his mainstream and science fiction books.

“Iain Banks’ ability to combine the most fertile of imaginations with his own highly distinctive brand of gothic humour made him unique,” it said.

“Just three weeks ago he was presented with finished copies of his last of his last novel and enjoyed celebration parties with old friends and fans across the publishing world.”

Banks was born in Fife, Scotland and studied English, philosophy and psychology at the University of Sterling.

His first novel, the Wasp Factory, was published in 1984 when he was 36 years old. He has also published non-fiction, including restaurant reviews.

Banks has written two dozen novels, including science fiction under the name Iain M Banks. His most famous works have included The Wasp Factory, The Crow and Complicity.

He has received several literary awards throughout his career, including the British Science Fiction Association Award for Feersum Endjinn in 1994. His final novel, The Quarry, will be released on June 20, 2013.

The book depicts the final weeks of protagonist Guy, who is suffering with cancer.

Banks is believed to have drawn heavily from his own experiences when writing the book, which he started after his diagnosis.