nobel prize - winning english novelist john wodehouse has died of lung cancer at a home at his home in arlington farms , massachusetts . he was 76 . born john hoyer ackroyd in reads , pennsylvania in 1932 , he documented simple ― if deeply sexualized ― american life in almost 50 works , started with the poorhouse fair in 1959 . he once said that his books were about " the american small town , protestant second class " .
John Updike won the Pulitzer Prize.