LONDON (Reuters) - Scottish novelist Iain Banks, whose books include "The Wasp Factory" has revealed he is suffering from cancer and is unlikely to live "beyond a year".
The author, who also wrote "The Crow Road" and "Complicity," announced his illness on his website on Wednesday and said he was cancelling all future public engagements.
Banks, 59, said his problems came to light after a visit to his doctor about a sore back. Tests revealed he was not only suffering from jaundice but also cancer in his gall bladder.
"I am officially very poorly ... I have cancer," he wrote, adding he is now on a short honeymoon, after asking his partner Adele Hartley to "become my widow."
Banks, who also writes science fiction under the name of Iain M Banks, said that as a late stage gall bladder cancer patient he is only expected to live for several months.
"It's extremely unlikely I'll live beyond a year. So it looks like my latest novel, 'The Quarry', will be my last," he added.
Born in Fife, Banks studied at Stirling University before publishing "The Wasp Factory", his first novel, in 1984.
In 2008, he was named one of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945 in a list compiled by The Times.
(Reporting by Li-mei Hoang, editing by Paul Casciato)