Mike Marqusee dies aged 61

Mike Marqusee, the acclaimed author, political commentator and journalist, died on Tuesday aged 61. Marqusee had been diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a bone marrow cancer since 2007 and passed away at the St Joseph's Hospice in London, a statement from his family said.

Marqusee, born in New York in 1953 had lived in Britain since 1971 and was an outspoken political activist and campaigner and had written extensively on politics and popular culture. He grew to be a cricket fan in Britain and became best-known in the cricket world for Anyone but England: An Outsider Looks at English Cricket first published in 1994. It was a polemic analysis of English cricket and has been called "the most perceptive, challenging and irreverent book on cricket since CLR James."

Marqusee covered the 1996 World Cup in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka and from it, wrote War Minus the Shooting: A Journey through South Asia during Cricket's World Cup. The first book he published was a novel around cricket, set in India called Slow Turn released in 1986. He was one of the founders of the Hit Racism For Six campaign, set up in 1996 to identify and rid the game of racism.

Throughout his working life, Marqusee wrote columns and articles for publications across the world, including the Guardian, the Independent and the Hindu on subjects ranging from geopolitics, Palestine, cricket, Carnatic music, Britain's National Health Service and the interplay of politics, culture and sport. Along with cricket, his books have focussed on the British Labour party, Muhammad Ali and Bob Dylan, with Marqusee also publishing two books of poetry, after being diagnosed with cancer. The The Price of Experience: Writings on Living with Cancer released in 2014, was his last book released before his death on Tuesday.