Manuel Vasquez Montalban, 64; Spanish Author and Poet

Manuel Vasquez Montalban, 64, one of Spain’s best-known authors and the creator of the Barcelona-based detective Pepe Carvalho, died Saturday during a stopover at Bangkok airport. He was returning to Madrid after giving a series of lectures in Sydney, Australia. Vasquez Montalban, who had undergone bypass surgery several years ago, was believed to have died of heart failure.

A poet, playwright and prolific political commentator, Vasquez Montalban left a body of work that spans four decades and earned numerous literary awards.

His 1990 novel “Galindez,” which won Spain’s National Literature Award and the European Literature Award, has been adapted into the Spanish film “The Galindez Mystery” starring Saffron Burrows and Harvey Keitel. The film is soon to be released in the U.S.

In his youth, the writer actively opposed the dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco, which resulted in a three-year prison stint and a lifelong commitment to left-leaning politics.

He published his first book of poetry in the late 1960s and began writing political commentary.

But outside his homeland, he was best-known as the creator of Pepe Carvalho, a curmudgeonly private eye whose adventures are punctuated by a self-deprecating humor and vivid depictions of the city of Barcelona. Vasquez Montalban, praised by Spanish King Juan Carlos II for his “loyalty to his ideas and their connectedness with the times in which he lived,” wrote 20 books in the detective series.