Fantasy writer Terry Pratchett, creator of 'Discworld' series, dies from Alzheimer's
Fantasy writer Terry Pratchett, creator of the "Discworld" series and author of more than 70 books, has died. He was 66.
British author Terry Pratchett, creator of the science fantasy Discworld novels, died on Thursday aged 66 after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease, his publishers said.
Pratchett, who sold over 85 million books worldwide, “passed away in his home with his cat sleeping on his bed, surrounded by his family”, said Larry Finlay, managing director at Transworld Publishers.
“The world has lost one of its brightest, sharpest minds,” Finlay said, adding: “Terry enriched the planet like few before him... his legacy will endure for decades to come.”
After being diagnosed in 2007 with a rare form of early-onset Alzheimer’s, which he called an “embuggerance”, Pratchett campaigned to raise awareness and reduce the stigma related to the disease.
Pratchett won worldwide fame and a cult following with his Discworld novels about a flat world balanced on the back of four elephants which themselves stand on the shell of a giant turtle.
He wrote the first book in the series, The Colour of Magic, in the late 1960s although it was not published until 1983. The 41st book was completed last summer, before he succumbed to the final stages of his disease.