LONDON — British writer Alan Sillitoe, whose "Saturday Night And Sunday Morning," and "The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner" chronicled the bleak postwar realities of the country's poor, died Sunday. He was 82.

Sillitoe, a leading member of the 1950s group of so-called angry young men of British fiction, was acclaimed for his uncompromising social criticism and depiction of domestic tensions — often dubbed kitchen sink dramas.

The writer's son David said his father had died at London's Charing Cross hospital, but gave no other details.

Albert Finney starred in the adaptation of "Saturday Night And Sunday Morning," as a disillusioned young factory worker. In the "The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner," Tom Courtenay portrayed a delinquent whose athletic prowess is seized upon by authorities as proof of their ability to rehabilitate youths.

Sillitoe left school at 14 and worked in factories. He later served as a wireless operator in the Royal Air Force.