Legendary cult author Russell Hoban, whose apocalyptic novel Riddley Walker was described by Anthony Burgess as "what literature is meant to be", died last night aged 86, his publisher has announced.

Hoban, born in Pennsylvania but a resident of London for more than 30 years, first made a name for himself with his children's books; his series about Frances the badger and his novel The Mouse and His Child are acclaimed as modern classics.

Riddley Walker, set in Kent 2,000 years after a nuclear holocaust and told in a distinctive version of English, was begun in 1974 and published in 1980 to huge praise. It has since been included in Harold Bloom's survey of literature, The Western Canon.

Hoban joined the US army aged 18, and was posted to Italy during the second world war, where he served as a messenger, later awarded a Bronze Star for bravery in action. He worked as a freelance illustrator on his return to America, publishing his first book, the illustrated children's title What Does it Do and How Does it Work, in 1959.

As well as writing (and sometimes illustrating) more than 20 books for adults and children, Hoban's novel Turtle Diary was filmed with a Harold Pinter screenplay, and he also wrote the libretto to Harrison Birtwistle's opera The Second Mrs Kong.

In an interview with the Guardian in 2002, Hoban described himself as "simply an addict" to writing. "If I am kept away from writing I become physically unwell. It is art and the creation of art that sustains me. Things like Conrad's Nostromo or Schubert's Winterreise or Haydn's Creation or paintings by Daumier make me feel it is a good thing to be part of the human race," he said. "It gives me energy, and now I've got into this rhythm where Angelica's Grotto was followed by Amaryllis and then The Bat Tattoo. I don't want to miss a year. And besides, when the tank is getting empty I think you drive a little faster."

"It's very, very sad indeed," said Bill Swainson, Hoban's publisher at Bloomsbury. He described Hoban as a "shocking, funny and really imaginative" writer.

"Like most people I came across Russell through Riddley Walker, which woke me up to what he was doing," he said. "His wonderful imagination is a common thread in all his books. In his last, Angelica Lost and Found, a hippogriff escapes from a painting and lands in San Francisco outside the window of a Jewish gallery owner who has just dumped her lover. Russell always wrote with with such a light touch - he always had fun, and made you think that there's not a sentence wasted."

Death, Hoban predicted in 2002, would "be a good career move". "People will say, 'yes, Hoban, he seems an interesting writer, let's look at him again'," he said.