Michael Herr, the American writer and war correspondent famous for writing Dispatches, described as “the best book I have ever read on men and war in our time” by John le Carré, has died aged 76.

Born in 1940, Herr was one of the most respected writers of New Journalism, the novelistic reportage pioneered by the likes of Tom Wolfe and Truman Capote, where the journalist is as much part of the story as their subject. He practised this most famously in his book Dispatches, about his time working as a war correspondent for Esquire magazine in Vietnam between 1967 to 1969.

Using traditionally literary techniques to convey the harsh realities of the war he experienced firsthand, Herr produced a unique, uncensored account of life among the conscripted troops. He avoided the US government’s daily press conferences, instead placing himself among the soldiers to document the fear, exhaustion and drugs he saw among the fighters.

He was a sweet, kind, funny, generous friend - this news is very sad indeed Salman Rushdie

Upon his return to the US, Herr began writing Dispatches. However, after 18 months at home, he experienced a breakdown and did not write anything between 1971 and 1975. He separated from his wife for a year, before reuniting with his family, recovering and finishing his book.

Dispatches was published in 1977 to great acclaim; the New York Times deemed it the best book “to have been written about the Vietnam war”, while gonzo journalist Hunter S Thompson said: “We have all spent 10 years trying to explain what happened to our heads and our lives in the decade we finally survived – but Michael Herr’s Dispatches puts all the rest of us in the shade.”

The book begins: “There was a map of Vietnam on the wall of my apartment in Saigon and some nights, coming back late to the city, I’d lie out on my bed and look at it, too tired to do anything more than just get my boots off. That map was a marvel, especially now that it wasn’t real anymore.” In 2016, the Guardian named Dispatches one of the best 100 nonfiction books of all time.

After the success of his book, Herr began working in Hollywood; he wrote the narration in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 film Apocalypse Now, which was partly based on Dispatches, and co-wrote the Oscar-nominated screenplay to the 1987 film Full Metal Jacket with director Stanley Kubrick and author Gustav Hasford. Initially meeting at a preview screening of Kubrick’s film The Shining in 1980, Herr and the director became close friends. In 2000, Herr published the biography, Kubrick, as a reaction to “the strangely contentious and extremely disrespectful tone that lurked inside so many of the obituaries and tributes”.

In an interview with the Guardian that year, Herr said that he was repeatedly asked to write about war again after Dispatches was published. “I say: ‘Haven’t you read my fucking book? What the fuck would I want to go and do that for?’ Publishers keep sending me books about Vietnam; I wish they’d stop. I’m not interested in Vietnam. It has passed clean through me.”

Author Salman Rushdie – a friend of Herr’s – told the Guardian: “He wrote the greatest book about Vietnam, Dispatches; not to mention the brilliant screenplay of Full Metal Jacket and the vital voiceover narration of Apocalypse Now. He was also a sweet, kind, funny, generous friend and this news is very sad indeed.”

In a statement on Friday, Herr’s publisher Knopf confirmed that the writer had died in a New York hospital after a lengthy illness. Knopf chairman Sonny Mehta said: “Dispatches is one of the seminal works of the twentieth century and the most brilliant treatment of war and men I have ever read. It is a work that secured Michael’s legacy as one of our great writers of narrative nonfiction. Michael was also a friend to many at Knopf. We will all miss him.”