British novelist David Lodge was twice shortlisted for Booker Prize

British novelist David Lodge, who was shortlisted for the Booker Prize twice, has died at the age of 89, his publisher said on Jan 3.

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The English author was best known for Small World (1984) and Nice Work (1988), which were nominated for the prestigious literary award in the 1980s.

He died peacefully on New Year's Day, Penguin Random House said, without giving a cause of death.

"His contribution to literary culture was immense, both in his criticism and through his masterful and iconic novels which have already become classics," said Lodge's publisher, Ms Liz Foley.

Lodge's family said they were very proud of the writer, who was renowned for his plays, memoirs and TV scripts, as well as his books.

Small World and Nice Work came after Changing Places (1975) and made up his campus trilogy series about a fictional university called Rummidge. It followed professors Philip Swallow from England and Morris Zapp from the United States and the cultural challenges they face when they swap universities for six months.

Lodge garnered a worldwide following for his comical, cynical take on middle-class life in more than a dozen novels, many mining the worlds of academia and Catholicism.

In 2008,