'Heart attack' of author in crash

Mr Sebald worked at Norwich's University of East Anglia

A prize-winning author probably suffered a heart attack shortly before his death in a head-on crash, an inquest heard.

Winfried Georg Sebald, 57, novelist and professor of European literature at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, was pronounced dead at the scene after his car collided with a tanker on 14 December last year.

A post-mortem examination revealed that although the cause of death was multiple injuries, the author had heart problems.

Dr Danielle Peat told the inquest on Wednesday that Prof Sebald had "a serious heart condition" that he "may have been unaware of".

'Massive impact'

The inquest at Norwich City Hall heard that Mr Sebald set out from his home at the Old Rectory in Upgate, Poringland, Norfolk, to drive to Norwich.

When negotiating a long sweeping left-hand bend on the A146 road, his Peugeot car went straight on - directly into the path of an oncoming lorry.

There was a "massive impact", the inquest heard.

In a statement read to the court, a woman, who was two cars behind the tanker, said that she had noticed the driver of the Peugeot had his head back facing the ceiling and that his body looked relaxed.

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"He was making no effort to control the car," she said.

Recording a verdict of accidental death, coroner William Armstrong said it was "likely that Prof Sebald had a heart attack and as a direct result the vehicle veered on to the wrong side of the road".

Prof Sebald, known as Max, came to England from his native Germany in 1970 when he began teaching at the University of East Anglia.

He had been tipped as a Nobel Prize winner for his novel Emigrant and posthumously won the National Book Critics Circle Fiction prize for his novel Austerlitz, accepted on his behalf by his agent in New York in March this year.