LONDON — Fantasy writer Terry Pratchett, 66, creator of the exuberant, satirical “Discworld” series and author of more than 70 books, died Thursday.
Pratchett suffered from a rare form of early onset Alzheimer’s disease. Transworld Publishers said he died at his home, “with his cat sleeping on his bed surrounded by his family.”
The firm said he died of natural causes, from a chest infection combined with the worsening effects of his dementia.
British Prime Minister David Cameron said “his books fired the imagination of millions and he fearlessly campaigned for dementia awareness.”
Pratchett was best known for “Discworld,” a series of more than 40 comic novels set in a teeming fantasy world. He sold more than 65 million books worldwide.
Transworld said Pratchett’s final book, “The Shepherd’s Crown,” is due to be published this year.
Pratchett didn’t shy away from the public debate about assisted suicide.
“I have vowed that rather than let Alzheimer’s take me, I would take it,” he said in 2010. “I would live my life as ever to the full and die, before the disease mounted its last attack, in my own home, in a chair on the lawn, with a brandy in my hand to wash down whatever modern version of the Brompton Cocktail some helpful medic could supply. And with Thomas Tallis on my iPod, I would shake hands with death.”
Other Deaths
Michael Graves, 80, an architect who designed modern and whimsical postmodern structures that included the Denver Public Library died Thursday of natural causes in his hometown of Princeton, N.J. Graves was born in Indianapolis. He was well-known in Denver as the architect of the city’s central library branch in downtown.
The Rev. Willie Barrow, 90, a front-line civil rights fighter for decades and a mentor to younger generations of activists, died Thursday in Chicago.
Barrow was a field organizer for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., marched on Washington and Selma in the 1960s and more recently focused concern on Chicago’s gun violence and changes to the Voting Rights Act.
Barrow had been hospitalized for treatment of a blood clot in her lung and died early Thursday, said fellow activist the Rev. Michael Pfleger.
“She’s one of those icons in the movement we’ve been able to hold onto for a long time, to learn from, to be loved by, to be challenged by,” Pfleger said.
