Nuremberg, Germany  - Chinghiz Aitmatov, 79, Kyrgyzstan's best-known literary author, was under treatment Monday at a hospital in the southern German city of Nuremberg, hospital sources said.

The author of the 1958 love story Jamilya was flown to Germany after becoming ill on Friday during film work 800 kilometres east of Moscow. Russian doctors diagnosed kidney failure.

Nuremberg City Hospital declined to discuss his presence or treatment, saying those who brought him to Germany had asked for confidentiality. But the sources said he was in an intensive-care ward at the clinic.

The Kyrgyz embassy in Moscow said before he left Russia that he was in a stable condition. An Aitmatov associate denied he was in a coma. (dpa)