Author Iain Banks announced that he has been diagnosed with gall bladder cancer and is not likely to live for more than a year.

Author Iain Banks took to his own website to announce that he has been suffering from gall bladder cancer and has less than a year to live. The author, who also wrote "The Crow Road" and "Complicity", announced his sickness on his website Wednesday, and said he was canceling all future public engagements.

Banks revealed that he came to know of his illness when he visited the doctor for a sore throat, but he later discovered that not only was he suffering from jaundice; he also had gall bladder cancer that was at a very eminent stage.

"The bottom line, now, I'm afraid, is that as a late stage gall bladder cancer patient, I'm expected to live for 'several months' and it's extremely unlikely I'll live beyond a year," writes Banks on his website. "So it looks like my latest novel, The Quarry, will be my last. As a result, I've withdrawn from all planned public engagements and I've asked my partner Adele if she will do me the honor of becoming my widow (sorry - but we find ghoulish humor helps). By the time this goes out we'll be married and on a short honeymoon. We intend to spend however much quality time I have left seeing friends and relations and visiting places that have meant a lot to us. Meanwhile my heroic publishers are doing all they can to bring the publication date of my new novel forward by as much as four months, to give me a better chance of being around when it hits the shelves."

"Lastly, I'd like to add that from my GP onwards, the professionalism of the medics involved - and the speed with which the resources of the NHS in Scotland have been deployed - has been exemplary, and the standard of care deeply impressive. We're all just sorry the outcome hasn't been more cheerful," concludes the author.