'To Kill a Mockingbird' author Harper Lee dies: official

American novelist Harper Lee, famous for the masterpiece "To Kill a Mockingbird" and for shunning the fame it brought her, has died aged 89, officials in her hometown said today.

A spokeswoman for the town of Monroeville, Alabama, where Lee spent her final years living in seclusion, confirmed local media reports of her death, saying: "She did pass away."

Lee's 1960 novel, which earned her a Pulitzer Prize, came to define racial injustice in the Depression-era South and became standard reading in classrooms across the world.