{{Infobox Writer <!-- for more information see :Template:Infobox Writer/doc -->
| image       = John Updike with Bushes.jpg
| caption     = John Updike (left), receiving the National Medal of Arts from President and Mrs. George H. W. Bush, 17 November, 1989
| name        = John Updike
| birthdate  = 
| birthplace = PA, U.S.A.
| occupation  = novelist, short story writer, literary critic
| genre       = Modernist literature
| notableworks = Rabbit Angstrom
| influences  = Ernest Hemingway, Henry Green, James Joyce, Søren Kierkegaard, Franz Kafka, Marcel Proust, Truman Capote,  Vladimir Nabokov, J. D. Salinger, William Shakespeare, James Thurber<ref>Osen, Diane.  [http://www.nationalbook.org/authorsguide_jupdike.html "Interview with John Updike"], The National Book Foundation.  2007.  Retrieved on 2007-07-10.</ref>
}}
'''John Hoyer Updike''' (born American Pulitzer Prize. Describing his subject as "the American small town, Protestant middle class," Updike is widely recognized for his careful craftsmanship and prolific output, having published 22 novels and more than a dozen short story collections, as well as poetry, literary criticism and children's books. Hundreds of his stories, reviews, and poems have appeared in ''The New Yorker'' since 1954.

==Early life==
As a teenager attending Shillington High School, Updike was encouraged to write by his mother, who had writing talent and saw the same, or more, in her son. Updike and his mother had the skin disease Robert Herrick) in English.   After Harvard, however he decided to pursue a career in graphic arts. Updike went to The Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art in Oxford. On returning to the U.S., he became a regular contributor to ''The New Yorker''. Updike stayed only two years at the New Yorker, even though he was clearly a young, rising star at the magazine. Updike moved to Ipswich, Massachusetts, where he said he was immersed in the society of "young bucks" playing among an abundance of "young does", married or not. He would later transform Ipswich into Eastwick in ''The Witches of Eastwick'', a place where women enjoyed a surge of power while befuddled men searched for their way. 

Updike's father was a school teacher and is widely believed to be the model for the teacher in one of his early novels, ''The Centaur''. His father continued to act as a substitute teacher in the area well into the 1960s. 

Updike's work reflects an utter fascination with every aspect of the village&ndash;like atmosphere of his small home town, itself an outlying area of Reading, Pennsylvania, a place he would transform into Alton, Pa., in his novels. The buildings, the streets, the dignity and determination with which the adults went about their business were all subjects of great interest and concern. Much of Shillington retains the way it looked during Updike's childhood. The movie theater is closed and has been converted into a discount store and there are more places to shop as one heads into or away from Reading, but the character of the place remains largely intact. A key event in his life was the decision by his parents to move away from Shillington and into the relative isolation of the nearby countryside, a place where his parents, and later his mother alone, lived until their deaths. It is possible that the experience of living in the country as an only child, along with childhood illness, provided the basis by which his natural talents as a writer were gathered and energized toward the idea of writing as a career. His work certainly reflects the habits of mind of one who has spent the greatest portion of his time in contemplation and study.

==Career==
Updike has become most famous as a "chronicler of suburban adultery." ("A subject which," he once wrote, "if I have not exhausted, has exhausted me.") Yet on many occasions, Updike has slipped away from familiar territory: ''movie of the same name) concerned a New England coven of divorcees, and was a bestseller; ''Nabokovian; his 2000 postmodern effort ''Gertrude and Claudius'' is a carefully researched overture to the story of ''Hamlet''. Other important novels include ''The Centaur'' (National Book Award, 1963), ''Couples'' (1968) and ''Roger's Version'' (1986). (Martin Amis called Roger's Version a "near-masterpiece; "Couples" both landed the author on the cover of Time Magazine and made his fortune.) 

Updike also enjoys working in series: In addition to the four Harry 'Rabbit' Angstrom novels, a recurrent Updike alter-ego is the moderately well-known, unprolific Jewish novelist and eventual Nobel laureate Henry Bech, chronicled in three comic short-story cycles: ''Bech: A Book'' (1970), ''Bech is Back'' (1981) and ''Bech At Bay: A Quasi-Novel'' (1998).  His stories involving the socially-conscious (and socially successful) couple "The Maples" are widely considered to be autobiographical, and several were the basis for a television movie entitled ''Too Far To Go'' starring Michael Moriarty and Blythe Danner which was broadcast on NBC. Updike stated that he chose this surname for the characters because he admired the beauty and resilience of the tree.

Updike stated at the dawn of his career an intention to publish one book a year, and advancing years have slowed down neither his production nor inventiveness. In 1994 he rewrote the tale of Terrorist'', the story of a fervent, eighteen-year-old extremist Muslim in New Jersey, was published in June 2006; his sixth collection of non-fiction, "Due Considerations," appeared in the fall of 2007.

A large anthology of short stories from his literary career, titled ''The Early Stories 1953&ndash;1975'' (2003) won the 2004 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. He wrote in its preface that his career's intention had been to "give the mundane its beautiful due."

Updike has worked in a wide array of genres, including fiction, poetry, essay, and memoir. His lone foray into drama, Buchanan Dying: a play, apparently constituted something of a reversal, since in a 1968 interview Updike claimed that "[t]he unreality of painted people standing on a platform saying things they've said to each other for months is more than I can overlook." He further said: "From Twain to James and Faulkner to Bellow, the history of novelists as playwrights is a sad one."

In 2006 Updike was awarded the Rea Award for the Short Story for outstanding achievement in that genre.

Updike has four children and currently lives in Beverly Farms, Massachusetts with his second wife, Martha. In his memoir,''Self Consciousness,'' Updike writes a letter to his Grandsons Anoff and Kwame, about the Updike family history, and asks that they not be ashamed of their skin. (His grandsons are half black, their father being from West Africa.) He also has a grandson named Trevor.

Updike is one of the most exquisite masters of prose style produced by 20th century America. Yet, his novels have been faulted for lacking any sense of action or character development. It appears at times that his ability to spin lovely phrases of delicate beauty and nuance overwhelm his desire to tell a simple, important story in the lives of his characters. Updike's novels raise the question of whether beauty of expression, the lyrical telling of a captured moment of human time is, itself, enough to justify a great work of art. In contrast, his short stories are seen by many as masterful in every respect, both for their prose style that approaches poetic expression and for the stories they convey. Some critics believe that had Updike produced only short stories and poems, his role in American letters would be even more celebrated. But it is Updike's novels that have brought him the greatest fame and attention and which resulted in his appearance on the covers of TIME Magazine two times during his career, the earliest occasion (1968) being when TIME was still considered an authoritative source on what was of signal importance in contemporary American society. Updike's prodigious output of prose, poetry, criticism, essays and personal recollections mark him as one of the most prolific Americans of any generation.

==Cultural references==
*Updike was the subject of a "closed book examination" by Nicholson Baker, entitled ''U and I'' (Random House, 1991).  Baker discusses his wish to meet Updike and become his golf partner.
* In an episode of the animated series ''The Simpsons'', "Insane Clown Poppy", John Updike is the ghost writer of a book that Krusty the clown is promoting. The book's title is "Your Shoes Too Big To Kickbox God," a 20-page book written entirely by John Updike as a money-making scam.

==Criticism==
Martin Amis has reviewed Updike's work on several occasions, including the essay collection ''Picked-Up Pieces'' ("Updike's view of twentieth-century literature is a levelling one. Talent, like life, should be available to all"), the memoir ''Self-Consciousness'' ("the last section of the book, 'On Being a Self Forever', is to my knowledge the best thing yet written on what it is like to get older: age, and the only end of age"), ''Rabbit at Rest'' ("this novel is enduringly eloquent about weariness, age and disgust, in a prose that is always fresh, nubile and unwitherable"), and ''Odd Jobs: Essays and Criticism'' ("there is a trundling quality, increasingly indulged: too much trolley-car nostalgia and baseball-mitt Americana, too much ancestor worship, too much piety").

==Quotations==

Men are all heart and Women are all body. I don't know who has the brains. God maybe. (Rabbit, Run)

The great thing about the dead, they make space. (Rabbit is Rich)

Rabbit loves men, uncomplaining with their bellies and cross-hatched red necks, embarrassed for what to talk about when the game is over, whatever the game is. What a threadbare thing we make of life! Yet what a marvelous thing the mind is, they can't make a machine like it; and the body can do a thousand things there isn't a factory in the world can duplicate the motion. (Rabbit is Rich)

Fortune's hostage, heart's desire, a granddaughter. His. Another nail in his coffin. His. (Rabbit is Rich)

Tell your mother, if she asks, that maybe we'll meet some other time. Under the pear trees, in Paradise. (Rabbit at Rest)

Of plants tomatoes seemed the most human, eager and fragile and prone to rot. (The Witches of Eastwick)

We all dream, and we all stand aghast at the mouth of the caves of our deaths; and this is our way in. Into the nether world. (The Witches of Eastwick)

right|thumb|John Updike (links) bei der Verleihung der ''National Medal of the Arts'' zusammen mit [[Barbara Bush|Barbara und George H. W. Bush am 17. November 1989]]
'''John Hoyer Updike''' (* Reading, US-amerikanischer Schriftsteller.

Updike hat mehr als 20 bedeutende Literatur-Nobelpreis.

== Leben ==
John Updike wurde 1932 als einziger Sohn eines Lehrers und Diakons in Reading in Pennsylvania geboren und wuchs bis zu seinem 13. Lebensjahr in dem nahegelegenen Shillington auf einer abgelegenen Farm in ärmlichen Verhältnissen auf. Als Kind litt er unter Schuppenflechte und stotterte; seine Mutter ermutigte ihn zu schreiben. 

Nach dem High-School-Abschluss erhielt er ein volles Stipendium für ein Anglistik-Studium an der summa cum laude abschloss. An der Universität arbeitete er in der Redaktion der Universitätszeitschrift ''Harvard Lampoon'' mit. Mit seiner Frau Mary Pennington, die er 1953 geheiratet hatte, verbrachte er 1954 ein akademisches Jahr an der Ruskin-Kunstschule im englischen E.B. und New Yorker'' und boten ihm an, für die Zeitschrift zu arbeiten.

Von 1955 bis 1957 war Updike Redakteur der Zeitschrift ''New Yorker'', wo er seine ersten Gedichte und seine erste Kurzgeschichte (''Friends from Philadelphia'') veröffentlichte. 1957 markiert einen Wendepunkt im Leben des Dichters: er verließ den ''New Yorker'', zog nach Ipswich/Massachusetts und widmete sich fortan ausschließlich dem Schriftstellerberuf - und wurde Vater eines Sohnes. Sein erstes Buch, der Gedichtband ''The Carpentered Hen'' erschien 1958, sein erster Roman, ''The Poorhouse Fair'', das von den Bewohnern eines Altenheims erzählte, ein Jahr darauf (den zuvor geschriebenen Roman ''Home'' ließ er nicht verlegen). Ein zweiter Sohn und die zweite Tochter wurden 1959 und 1960 geboren. 17 Jahre lebte Updike in Ipswich, das die Vorlage für den Ort ''Tarbox'' in seinem Roman ''Ehepaare'' (''Couples'', 1968) bildete. Die meisten seiner Romane spielen in Neuengland, so auch die Romane ''The Centaur'' (1963), eine Vater-Sohn-Geschichte voller Mystik, und ''The Coup'' (1979), die Ich-Erzählung über den Ex-Diktator eines fiktiven afrikanischen Landes.

1976 wurden Updike und Mary Pennington geschieden; 1977 heiratete er in zweiter Ehe Martha Bernhard und lebte mit ihr und ihren drei Söhnen in Georgetown (Massachusetts). Die folgenden Jahrzehnte sind angefüllt von produktiver schriftstellerischer Arbeit und Veröffentlichungen. Zahlreiche Preise und Auszeichnungen, darunter 1982 der Pulitzer-Preis für ''Bessere Verhältnisse'' und der Faulkner Award, spiegeln den Erfolg wider.  

===Die Rabbit-Reihe===
Berühmt wurde Updike mit dem Roman ''Rabbit, Run'' (dt. ''Hasenherz''), dem 1960 erschienenen, ersten Band der ''Rabbit''-Reihe. Updike ließ die ursprüngliche Fassung von seinem Verleger bearbeiten, um eventuell zu erwartende Probleme wegen sexuell anstößiger Szenen zu vermeiden. 
Zu der Reihe von vier Romanen und einer längeren Erzählung, die das Leben von Harry 'Rabbit' Angstrom schildern, gehören neben ''Rabbit, Run'', ''Rabbit Redux'' (dt. ''Unter dem Astronautenmond''), ''Rabbit is Rich'' (dt. ''Bessere Verhältnisse''), ''Rabbit at Rest'' (dt. ''Rabbit in Ruhe'') und die Erzählung ''Rabbit Remembered'' (dt. ''Rabbit, eine Rückkehr''). Die Bände der Reihe erschienen im Abstand von je fast genau zehn Jahren und schildern in entsprechenden Zeitabständen das Leben ihres Protagonisten: ''Harry „Rabbit“ Angstrom'' war an der Highschool ein Basketball-Star, der diesen vergangenen Ruhm nie überwinden kann. Weder das Eheleben mit seiner Frau Janice, noch der Sohn Nelson und auch nicht die Liebesaffären, seine Jobs, der erreichte Wohlstand oder Ruhestand können ihn von dem Traum abbringen, im Leben müsse es mehr geben als das. Diese tiefsitzende Unzufriedenheit führt zu vielen kleineren und größeren Ausbruchsversuchen, tatsächlichen Fluchten und persönlichen Revolten, die ihn jedoch stets wieder zurückführen, zu seiner Frau und der Existenz in der Kleinstadt Brewer, das Updike seiner Heimatstadt Reading nachgezeichnet hat. Updike ist es mit dieser Serie wie keinem anderen Autoren gelungen, die äußere, materielle Entwicklung der USA wie auch die Veränderungen der amerikanischen Befindlichkeiten zwischen den späten Fünfziger Jahren und der Jahrtausendwende einzufangen, poetisch treffend zu beschreiben und präzise zu analysieren.

==Preise und Auszeichnungen==
* Guggenheim-Stipendium (1959)
* Rosenthal Award
* National Institute of Arts and Letters (1959)
* National Book Award in Fiction (1964, 1982)
* O. Henry Prize (1966/1991)
* American Book Award (1982)
* National Book Critics Circle Award, for fiction (1982, 1990)
* Union League Club Abraham Lincoln Award (1982)
* National Arts Club Medal of Honor (1984)
* National Medal of the Arts (1989)
* Mitglied der ''American Academy of Arts and Letters'' seit 1976
* National Medal for Humanites des Weißen Hauses (2003)
* Pulitzer-Preise für ''Bessere Verhältnisse'' und ''Rabbit in Ruhe''
* PEN/Faulkner Award (2004)

== Werke ==

=== Romane ===
* 1959 - The Poorhouse Fair (dt. ''Das Fest am Abend'', 1961)
* 1963 - The Centaur (dt. ''Der Zentaur'', 1966)
* 1965 - Of The Farm (dt. ''Auf der Farm'', 1969)
* 1968 - Couples (dt. ''Ehepaare'', 1969)
* 1975 - A Month of Sundays (dt. ''Der Sonntagsmonat'', 1976)
* 1976 - Marry Me: A Romance (dt. ''Heirate mich. Eine Romanze'', 1978)
* 1978 - The Coup (dt. ''Der Coup'', 1981)
* 1984 - The Witches of Eastwick (dt. ''Die Hexen von Eastwick'', 1985)
* 1986 - Roger's Version (dt. ''Das Gottesprogramm'', 1988)
* 1988 - S. (dt. ''S.'', 1989)
* 1992 - Memories of the Ford Administration (dt. ''Erinnerungen an die Zeit unter Ford'', 1994)
* 1994 - Brazil (dt. ''Brasilien'', 1994)
* 1996 - In the Beauty of the Lilies (dt. ''Gott und die Wilmots'', 1998)
* 1997 - Toward the End of Time (dt. ''Gegen Ende der Zeit'', 2000)
* 2000 - Gertrude and Claudius (dt. ''Gertrude und Claudius'', 2001)
* 2002 - Seek My Face (dt. ''Sucht mein Angesicht'', 2005)
* 2004 - Villages (dt. ''Landleben'', 2006)
* 2006 - Terrorist (dt. ''Terrorist'', 2006)
* 2008 - The Widows of Eastwick

* '''Die Rabbit-Pentalogie''' 
** 1960 - Rabbit, Run (dt. ''Hasenherz'', 1976)
** 1971 - Rabbit Redux (dt. ''Unter dem Astronautenmond'', 1978)
** 1981 - Rabbit Is Rich (dt. ''Bessere Verhältnisse'', 1983)
** 1990 - Rabbit at Rest (dt. ''Rabbit in Ruhe'', 1992)
** 2002 - Rabbit Remembered (dt. ''Rabbit, eine Rückkehr'', 2002)

* '''Die ''Bech Books''''' 
** 1970 - Bech: A Book (dt. in ''Henry Bech'', 1991)
** 1982 - Bech Is Back (dt. in ''Henry Bech'', 1991)
** 1998 - Bech At Bay: A Quasi-Novel (dt. ''Bech in Bedrängnis'', 2000)

=== Theaterstücke ===

* 1974 - Buchanan Dying

=== Kinderbücher ===

* 1962 - The Magic Flute
* 1964 - The Ring
* 1965 - A Child's Calendar
* 1969 - Bottom's Dream
* 1995 - A Helpful Alphabet Of Friendly Objects (dt. ''Das erste Bilderbuch. Alltägliche Dinge für Kleinkinder.'', 1998)

=== Autobiographisches ===

* 1989 - Self-Consciousness (dt. ''Selbst-Bewusstsein'', 1995)