WASHINGTON, Jan. 27 (Xinhua) -- John Updike, one of the leading figures of modern American literature, died Tuesday at the age of 76, his publisher said.
Updike passed away in the morning at a hospital near his home in Beverley Farms, Massachusetts, after fighting a lung cancer for many years, according to a statement from Updike's publisher Alfred A. Knopf.
He wrote a lot of best-sellers during his career, including "The Witches of Eastwick" (1984) and "Terrorist" (2006).
But Updike is best known for his "Rabbit" series novels, about an angst-ridden car dealer in a town much like Updike's hometown of Shillington, Pennsylvania,, spanned four novels, a novella and four decades.
Two of the "Rabbit" novels, "Rabbit Is Rich" (1981) and "Rabbitat Rest" (1991) won the Pulitzer Prize.
Updike was incredibly prolific, penning essays, reviews, short stories, poetry and memoirs.
For The New Yorker magazine alone, he had written 862 pieces, including 327 book reviews, 170 short stories and 154 poems.
Updike was born on March 18, 1932, in Reading, Pennsylvania.
From an early age he took to reading and writing, and earned a full scholarship to Harvard, where he headed the Harvard Lampoon.
He also studied at Oxford University in England for one year.
By the time he was 23, he had been offered a position at The New Yorker, which was to become his literary home over the next 50-plus years. Updike's first novel, "The Poorhouse Fair," came out in 1959.
The next year, in "Rabbit, Run," he introduced Angstrom, who was to become one of the most famous characters in American fiction.
Updike's most recent novel, "The Widows of Eastwick," came out in 2008.
A collection of stories, "My Father's Tears and Other Stories," is due out later this year.
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