Spanish writer, resistance fighter and Holocaust survivor Jorge Semprun has died in Paris at the age of 87.

Semprun documented his experiences in the Nazi death camp Buchenwald in a famous autobiography recently released in English as The Cattle Truck.

He also was known for his screenplays Z, directed by Costa Gavras, and The War is Over, directed by Alain Resnais.

Born in 1923 in Madrid, Semprun settled in France after his family fled from the civil war and violence in Spain.

Semprun later joined the French resistance against Nazi German occupation, was captured and sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp where he remained until the end of World War Two in 1945.

Undeterred, he joined the Communist party and stood against Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, who ruled Spain for more than three decades until his death in 1975.

Semprun was appointed Spain's minister of culture from 1988-1991.

He then returned to Paris to write.