Leading Syrian novelist Hanna Mina dies aged 94

One of Syria's best-known novelists has died aged 94, ending a career spanning more than six decades and penning dozens of novels.

Hanna Mina was born in 1924 in Latakia city, then part of a French-mandate territory known as the Alawite State, and over the past decades became one of the Arab world's most prized writers.

Although Mina spent much of his childhood in a village situated in modern-day Hatay province his family fled to Latakia, after Turkey annexed the area.

His life-long passion for Marxism grew during his adolescent years, while the city and Turkish-occupied village he grew up in became the settings of many of his novels. 

Mina soon became an active part of the local Communist community, distributing a Marxist newspaper in Latakia, while he worked as a barber.

In his twenties, he moved to Damascus and eventually worked as a low-paid trainee editor for al-Inshaa newspaper, eventually becoming editor-in-chief.

During his early years as a journalist, he began his literary career, at first writing short stories before writing novels, starting with his debut work The Blue Lanterns.

Class conflict, Marxist-inspired social realism, and Syria's period of French colonial rule became common themes in his work. Protagonists often worked low-paid menial jobs and lived in extreme poverty.

He became a leading figure in Syria's literary scene and won fame across the Arab world.

Among the awards picked up by Mina was the Naguib Mahfouz Prize for Arabic Literature in 2004, while in Syria a literary prize was set up in his name.

Syrian state media announced his death on Tuesday, saying he died in Damascus after suffering a "long illness".

Mina leaves behind more than 40 novels to his name, with a number adapted into Syrian TV dramas.