The novelist Hubert Selby Jr, author of Last Exit to Brooklyn and Requiem for a Dream, has died at the age of 75. He was diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease several years ago, having suffered from breathing problems since contracting tuberculosis as a child, and died in a Los Angeles hospital on Monday.

Last Exit to Brooklyn, Selby's first novel, was published in 1964 and is acknowledged as a classic of postwar American literature. Predicted by Allen Ginsberg to "explode like a rusty hellish bombshell over America and still be eagerly read in 100 years", it contains a savage indictment of the American dream in its portrayal of Brooklyn's homeless people and underclass. It was made into a film in 1989.

"It was a seminal piece of work. It broke so many traditions," said Jim Regan, head of the master's course in professional writing at the University of Southern California, where Selby taught for the last 20 years.

"There was that generation of writers: William Burroughs, Henry Miller, and there was Hubert Selby. And he's one of the last of that generation, of some of the greatest writers in this country."

Novels including The Room (1971) and The Demon (1976) followed Last Exit from Brooklyn, but Selby's second great work was Requiem for a Dream. It is a disturbing tale which follows the lives of four characters who are addicted not only to drugs - diet pills, cocaine, heroin - but also to self-delusion in their pursuit of unattainable dreams.

Last Exit to Brooklyn was adapted for the cinema in 1989, and Requiem for a Dream was made into a film by Darren Aronofsky in 2000. Selby co-wrote the screenplay and was working on new screenplays until he was hospitalised last month.

In article last year, Selby said that Requiem for a Dream was not inspired by his own experiences of struggling with addiction. Instead, the inspiration for the book "... is watching the American dream not only destroy so many lives in the US, but infect the rest of the world with its obsession with getting more, ignoring the deadly effect that has on the planet."

Selby is survived by his wife, Suzanne Selby, four children and 11 grandchildren.