London  - British comic fantasy novelist Terry Pratchett has been given a knighthood for his services to literature by Queen Elizabeth II.

On publication of this year's New Year Honours List in London Wednesday the 60-year-old novelist said he was "flabbergasted" to receive a knighthood, which means he will now be called "Sir Terry."

The writer, who is best known for his popular Discworld series of comic fantasy novels, has sold more than 55 million books worldwide and had his works translated into 33 languages.

"I am of course delighted and honoured and, needless to say, flabbergasted," he said.

The author made headlines at the end of 2007 when he announced that he had been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease.

He has spent most of 2008 campaigning to raise awareness of the condition and improve research funding to combat it, while himself making considerable donations.

Pratchett published his first novel, The Carpet People, in 1971, although he did not take up writing books full time until 1987.

His career as a novelist began with the publication of the first Discworld book, The Colour of Magic, in 1983.

The Discworld novels are set in a parallel universe supported on the back of four elephants that stand on the shell of a giant turtle - a universe that bears more than a passing resemblance to our own.