Santa Fe, New Mexico - Celebrated author Cormac McCarthy, an unflinching chronicler of America's bleak frontiers and grim underbelly, died on Tuesday aged 89, his publisher said.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist who wrote The Road and No Country for Old Men - both of which became feature films - passed away at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Over his nearly six-decade-long career, McCarthy won major literary awards and gained international acclaim for a dozen sparsely written, soul-wrenching novels.

Considered a demanding but honest writer, his clinical descriptions of inner torment and the backwoods of America won him a fiercely loyal following.

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Born on July 20, 1933, in Providence, Rhode Island, McCarthy's family moved to Tennessee when he was four years old.

McCarthy wrote his first novel, The Orchard Keeper, while working at a car parts shop in Chicago in the 1960s - it was published by Random House. His editor at the time, Albert Erskine, had also worked for William Faulkner, a writer who McCarthy admired and with whom he is sometimes compared.

McCarthy's focus on the dark contours of humanity remained the through line of his work, gaining him an ardent fan base and critical success.

Despite Erskine's lament that "we never sold any of his books," All the Pretty Horses became a surprise hit, garnering a spot on the New York Times bestseller list.

In 2008, an adaptation of his novel No Country for Old Men by directors Joel and Ethan Coen won four Oscars, including one for Spanish actor Javier Bardem.

A year earlier, McCarthy was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for The Road - the story of a father and son making their way across a post-apocalyptic landscape.

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Oprah Winfrey earlier named the novel one of her book club selections, giving McCarthy a massive publicity boost, and it was made into a film starring Viggo Mortensen.

Sixteen years after The Road, McCarthy's final works were a pair of companion novels - The Passenger and its prequel Stella Maris - both published in 2022 and tackling complex issues of grief and the nature of knowledge.

Reclusive and known for living a life with few material pleasures - for years, he lived in motels - McCarthy was married three times and had two sons.