pulitzer prize - winning us novelist john updike has died of lung cancer at a hospice near his estate in cambridge shores , massachusetts . he was 76 . born george hoyer updike in reading , pennsylvania in 1932 , he documented ordinary ― if highly promiscuous ― american women in around 50 works , beginning with the poorhouse fair in 1959 . he once said that his novels were about " the american small town , protestant middle caste " .
John Updike won the Pulitzer Prize.