The well-known and award-winning Argentine writer and novelist, Ernesto Sabato, has died at the age of 99 near the capital Buenos Aires.
Sabato, also a human rights champion, died at his home on Saturday morning, a Press TV correspondent reported.
As a young man, Sabato studied Physics and earned a doctorate. He, however, became disenchanted with what he saw as the misuse of science.
When he lost his job as a university lecturer in Argentina after criticizing the government at the time, he gave up on science altogether.
He won some of the most prestigious prizes in Hispanic literature, but he was also known for his criticism of military regimes in Latin America.
In 1984, Sabato received the Cervantes Award, the most important in the Spanish literature. His literary works include The Tunnel and On Heroes and Tombs.
The Tunnel has been hailed as an existentialist classic.
HSH/AGB/AKM