Spanish novelist Javier Marías dies in Madrid hospital aged 70

Javier Marías, pictured here in his Madrid apartment in 2017, was described by the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, as ‘one of the great writers of our time’. Photograph: Quim Llenas/Getty Images

The Spanish novelist Javier Marías, author of All Souls, A Heart so White, and the epic, three-part Your Face Tomorrow – and a writer regularly touted as a candidate for the Nobel prize for literature – has died in hospital in Madrid at the age of 70.

Marías, who had been ill with pneumonia for the past month, died on Sunday, according to his publisher, Alfaguara.