ROME (AFP) ― Antonio Tabucchi, one of Italy’s leading contemporary writers and a ferocious critic of billionaire former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, died in Lisbon on Sunday at the age of 68.

Tabucchi died of cancer in the country that had become his second home, according to Italy’s left-leaning newspaper La Repubblica, which worked closely with the author.

His funeral will take place on Thursday in the Portuguese capital. “A friend, a fellow traveller, a man who lived with passion and rage, a European intellectual, a great writer, has abandoned us,” his Italian publisher Feltrinelli said in a statement.

Tabucchi, whose many works include “Indian Nocturne” and “Tristano Dies”and who has been translated into 40 languages, was also a professor who specialised in Portuguese literature.

“He was not only an intimate friend of Lisbon and Portugal, and a friend of our literature... he was the most Portuguese of all Italians, a dear author for Portuguese readers,” said Portugal’s culture secretary Francisco Jose Viegas.

An editor with a French publishing house said Tabucchi died in hospital surrounded by family members after suffering widespread cancer that was only discovered during an operation on his hip two weeks ago.