John Updike, 76
We won’t be seeing much of the Rabbit anymore. The American novelist and short story writer John Updike died January 27, 2009 of lung cancer at Beverly Farms, Massachusetts. He was 76.
The literary genius in John Updike produced the acclaimed Rabbit series such as Rabbit Redux, Rabbit is Rich, Rabbit at Rest. The last two works of John Updike mentioned received the Pulitzer Prize. He has published more than twenty-five novels a collection of short stories in his literary career. John Updike is also famous for his poetry as well as his notable art and literary criticisms. He is also well accounted for his children’s books.
John Updike was born in Reading, Pennsylvania USA on March 18, 1932. A handful of John Updike’s literary works can be seen in “The New Yorker” where he started to craft poems, short stories and reviews as early as 1954. John Updike also contributed his literary prowess for The New York Review of Books. Because of his excellent craftsmanship on his field of work and unique writing style, John Updike has garnered and attracted various amount of critical attention.
John Updike became famous as he was fond of, writing series. Most of his writings reflect a John Updike alter-ego which are mostly autobiographical in nature. He also wrote literary pieces that were unordinary in nature – The Witches of Eastwick. This work of him was later made into a movie and a musical. Most of John Updike’s notable works dealt on what was unknown to his forte in a way or the other. He did works about some social and political issues. Some of his novels that brought him to stardom were “The Centaur”, “Couples” and “Roger’s Version”. It was John Updike’s “Couples” which made him one of the best as it landed him on TIME’ glossy magazine cover.
John Updike was likewise awarded for outstanding achievement in Short Story by the Rea Award in 2006. He was also chosen to present the Jefferson Lecture in 2008 by the National Endowment for the Humanities. It was an honor for John Updike because said Lecture is considered the highest humanities honor by the US federal government.
The award-winning writer suffered from psoriasis before his untimely death. John Updike is survived by his second wife, Martha and his four children.
January 30th, 2009 at 3:56 am
John Updike’s passing is sad news indeed… he possessed a truly beautiful mind; he didn’t just write well, he wrote wisely