Author Peter Mayle, who launched many an expatriate dream with his best-selling memoir A Year in Provence, has died at age 78, his publisher, Knopf, said.

Mayle died early Thursday at a hospital near his home in Provence after a brief illness.

Mayle, who was English, began his career in advertising. A move to the south of France inspired his book A Year in Provence, in which he recounted what it was like to move to a 200-year-old farmhouse in Lubéron with his wife and two large dogs and enjoy the good life. The book was published in the U.S. by Knopf in 1990.

Mayle also wrote fiction, and his most recent book, The Diamond Caper, was published in 2015. His other titles include Acquired Tastes, The Corsican Caper and French Lessons: Adventures With Knife, Fork, and Corkscrew.He received the Légion d’Honneur from the French government for his cultural contributions.

A Year in Provence was turned into a TV series in 1993, and Mayle’s novel A Good Year became a 2006 movie starring Russell Crowe.