Mexican writer Federico Campbell dies at 72

MEXICO CITY – Mexican author, journalist and essayist Federico Campbell has died. He was 72.

Mexico’s National Institute of Fine Arts says Campbell died Saturday.

He was perhaps best known for his novel, “Tijuanans,” a portrait of Campbell’s native city during the 1930s.

Born in 1941, Campbell studied law, literature and philosophy in Mexico City and journalism at Macalester College in Minnesota. He worked as a foreign correspondent in Washington, founded a publishing house and translated works of Harold Pinter and David Mamet. He won the Colima Narrative Fine Arts Prize in 2000 for his novel “Transpeninsular.”

He published nearly two dozen other works of fiction and non-fiction, including novels, short story collections, essays and interviews.

The institute did not list a cause of death, but noted he had been hospitalized.