Leon Uris, hugely popular author of Exodus, dies at 78

AUTHOR Leon Uris, an immigrant’s determined son who made it big with the best-selling Exodus and other hugely popular novels, has died, his ex-wife said yesterday. He was 78.

Mr Uris died on Saturday of natural causes at his home on New York’s Shelter Island, photographer Jill Uris said from her home in Aspen, Colorado

Published in 1958, the 600-page Exodus was a sensation as millions read Mr Uris’ detailed, heroic chronicle of European Jewry from the turn of the century to the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948.