Spanish novelist Javier Marías dies at home in Madrid aged 70

Marias, also a translator and columnist, was described as one of Spain's greatest contemporary writers'

The Spanish novelist Javier Marias, 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 at home in Madrid at the age of 70.

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