Spanish novelist Javier Marías dies at age 70

MADRID (AP) — Javier Marías, Spain’s most prestigious novelist of the past half century, has died, his publisher said on Sunday. He was 70 years old. Spanish news agency EFE says that Marías passed away in hospital after not recovering from a lung infection. Marías was the author of 15 novels, translations and collections of his weekly newspaper columns. He was considered for years to be the leading Spanish candidate to win the Nobel Prize for Literature since Camilo José Cela was awarded the honor in 1989.