John Updike Biography

Considered one of the greatest American writers of the twentieth century, John Updike was a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner author and was also the recipient of many prestigious literary awards. A prodigious and prolific writer, most of Updike’s novels center on religion, sex and the American middle class. Talking about average American people, he once said, "I like middles. It is in middles that extremes clash, where ambiguity restlessly rules." Many of his novels have been adapted for movies and television for their visual appeal and proximity to the lives of Americans. Apart from a fair number of novels and short stories to his credit, he was also a regular contributor to ‘The New Yorker’. According to famous essayist and writer, Adam Gopnik, Updike was "the first American writer since Henry James to get himself fully expressed, the man who broke the curse of incompleteness that had haunted American writing”. Updike’s prose style has always been the highlight of his novels for its "rich description and language," making it almost inimitable. However, his novels are not his only major works. He was an equally good poet and short story writer. He has a composed huge number of poems, written a large number of short stories and essays and literary criticisms. To know more about this great personality, read the biography below.