‘Rabbit’ Author John Updike, 76, Dies
Well-known, critically acclaimed author John Updike passed away at age 76 this morning, Tuesday, January 27, after fighting a battle against lung cancer. He was born and raised in Pennsylvania, but died in his Massachusetts home.
Updike has been a long-lasting presence in great American literature, with his published work spanning more than four decades. In an article announcing his death, CNN hailed Updike “as one of the greatest and most prolific writers in modern American letters.”
Updike attended Harvard University on a full scholarship and graduated summa cum laude in 1954 with a degree in English. By age 23, he had joined the staff of the “New Yorker,” for which he would continue to write throughout his career.
He was a novelist, poet, art critic, and literary critic. He wrote short stories and a memoir, and gained fame for chronicling suburban adultery in an explicit, but poetic, manner. His published novels include Rabbit, Run (1960) and it’s four subsequent sequels, Couples (1968), The Witches of Eastwick (1984), and Terrorist (2006).
Updike won the Pulitzer Prize twice - for Rabbit Is Rich (1981) and Rabbit at Rest (1991). His many other awards include, but are by no means limited to: an O. Henry Award, the National Book Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, a National Medal of Arts, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from Literary Review magazine. Several of his short stories about the socially conscious, well-to-do Maple family inspired the made-for-TV movie Too Far to Go.
“He was one of our greatest writers, and he will be sorely missed,” said Nicholas Latimer, vice president of publicity at Updike’s publisher, Alfred A. Knopf.
January 30th, 2009 at 2:10 am
the loss of John Updike makes me wonder if the literary world is being replenished at the same rate that it’s losing such great writers
February 26th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Nice tribute post to Updike. Yeah coffee, know what you mean. the literary world is always replenished though. Now we have to find the real voices that publishers once had the job of recognizing and providing to the public.