The US novelist John Updike has died. He was 76.
He died of lung cancer died in a hospice in Massachusetts this morning.
John Updike worked in a wide array of genres, including fiction, poetry, essay, and memoir.
Born in small-town Pennsylvania, he was educated at Harvard and later in the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art in Oxford, England.
His work focussed on suburban America, and his ‘Rabbit’ series of novels told of the slow disappointment in life of an early sports star.
John Updike became most famous as a ‘chronicler of suburban adultery’ ("A subject which," he once wrote, "if I have not exhausted, has exhausted me").
Describing his characters as ‘the American small town Protestant middle class,’ he was widely recognized for his careful craftsmanship, his highly stylistic writing, and his prolific output.
His 22nd novel, Terrorist, was published in June 2006; his sixth collection of non-fiction appeared in autumn 2007.
He also published numerous collections of short stories and poetry.
His work attracted a significant amount of critical attention and he was considered one of the most prominent contemporary American novelists.
