Updike, John Hoyer

US writer. Associated with the New Yorker magazine from 1955, he soon established a reputation for polished prose, poetry, and criticism. His novels include The Poorhouse Fair (1959), The Centaur (1963), Couples (1968), The Witches of Eastwick (1984), Roger's Version (1986), and S. (1988), and deal with the tensions and frustrations of contemporary US middle-class life and their effects on love and marriage.

Updike was born in Shillington, Pennsylvania, and graduated from Harvard University. Two characters recur in his novels: the former basketball player ‘Rabbit’ Angstrom, who matures in the series Rabbit, Run (1960), Rabbit Redux (1971), Rabbit is Rich (1981, Pulitzer Prize), and Rabbit at Rest (1990, Pulitzer Prize); and the novelist Henry Bech, who appears in Bech: A Book (1970) and Bech is Back (1982). Updike was awarded the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters in the 1998 National Book Awards.