Renowned Albanian novelist Ismail Kadare has died after being taken to hospital in Tirana, his publishing editor said on Monday. He was 88.

Albanian President Bajram Begaj said: “Albania and Albanians lost their genius of letters, their spiritual emancipator, the Balkans (lost) the poet of its myths, Europe and the world (lost) one of the most renowned representatives of modern literature.”

Kadare has long been mentioned as a possible contender for the Nobel Literature Prize.

Onufri Publishing House editor Bujar Hudhri said the author died on Monday.

A nurse at the hospital said he had suffered a cardiac arrest.

Kadare became internationally recognised after his novel The General Of The Dead Army was published in 1963, when Albania was still governed by the communist government of late dictator Enver Hoxha.

Kadare fled Albania to France in the autumn of 1990, just a few months before the fall of the communist regime after student protests the previous December. He lived in Paris and had recently returned to Tirana.

Last year, French President Emmanuel Macron awarded him the title of Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour, during a visit to the Albanian capital.

France had previously made him a foreign associate of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences and a Commander of the Legion of Honour.