Pulitzer Prize Winner Updike Dies of Lung Cancer at 76

Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner John Updike ’54 died today of lung cancer at the age of 76.

Updike was noted for authoring over 50 books over the course of his decades-long career, winning his two Pulitzers for his books “Rabbit is Rich” and “Rabbit at Rest.”

Born in Pennsylvania, Updike graduated as the valedictorian of small-town Shillington high school and entered Harvard in 1950 on a scholarship.

An English major, Updike became president of The Harvard Lampoon in 1953, and graduated the following year summa cum laude, before serving a fellowship at Oxford University. His first poem appeared in The New Yorker in 1954.

The award-winning author was memorialized on the Harvard campus as his fame extended elsewhere. Updike presided over the opening of an exhibit of his manuscripts at the Houghton Museum in 1987. His papers are still available for viewing at the Houghton Library today.

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