Author Tom Wolfe, who chronicled everything from hippies to the space race before turning his sharp eye to fiction, has died aged 87.

Wolfe's agent Lynn Nesbit told The Associated Press that he died in a New York City hospital.

Additional details were not immediately available.

The "new journalism" reporter and novelist insisted that the only way to tell a great story was to go out and report it.

His writing style was rife with exclamation points, italics and improbable words.

Among his acclaimed books were The Right Stuff and The Bonfire Of The Vanities, a satire of Manhattan-style power and justice that became one of the best-selling books of the Eighties.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.