MADRID (AFP) - Spanish novelist Francisco Ayala, whose works dealt with the abuse of power and who taught at several top universities in the US, died Tuesday at his home in Madrid, his foundation said. He was 103.

Born in 1906 in the southern city of Granada, he authored a vast body of fiction that earned him recognition as one of the most important Spanish intellectuals of the 20th century as well as several top awards.

He was awarded the Cervantes Prize, the top literary prize in the Spanish-speaking world, in 1991 and seven years later the Prince of Asturias Prize for literature, the Spanish equivalent of the Nobel Prize.

Speaking at a tribute to him at Spain's National Library in honour of his 103rd birthday on March 16, Ayala said he felt embarrassed "to hear words of praise for having done just what I thought I had to do throughout my life. I think I've done it more or less decently."

Culture Minister Angeles Gonzalez-Sinde said Ayala had provided "a very broad vision of the history of Spain and of our past century."

Ayala went into exile at the end of Spain's 1936-39 civil war as right-wing General Francisco Franco consolidated power, and he only permanently returned to the country in 1980, five years after the dictator's death.

After living in Argentina and Brazil, he went to New York in the 1950s where he briefly worked as a translation supervisor at the United Nations.

He taught Spanish literature at several universities in the United States, including Princeton, Rutgers and New York University, until his retirement as a professor in 1976.

His works of fiction -- which include "The Bottom of the Glass", "The Return" and "On Abduction, Rape, Monkeys and Other Inconveniences" -- did not directly deal with Spain's civil war but instead examined it through other historical periods. Ayer also wrote essays on several themes.