WRITER

John Updike

1932 - 2009

Photo of John Updike

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John Hoyer Updike (March 18, 1932 – January 27, 2009) was an American novelist, poet, short-story writer, art critic, and literary critic. One of only four writers to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once (the others being Booth Tarkington, William Faulkner, and Colson Whitehead), Updike published more than twenty novels, more than a dozen short-story collections, as well as poetry, art and literary criticism and children's books during his career. Hundreds of his stories, reviews, and poems appeared in The New Yorker starting in 1954. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of John Updike has received more than 2,559,852 page views. His biography is available in 69 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 66 in 2019). John Updike is the 1,132nd most popular writer (down from 894th in 2019), the 1,335th most popular biography from United States (down from 1,053rd in 2019) and the 126th most popular American Writer.

John Updike is most famous for his novels and short stories that explore the lives of the American middle class.

Memorability Metrics

  • 2.6M

    Page Views (PV)

  • 60.78

    Historical Popularity Index (HPI)

  • 69

    Languages Editions (L)

  • 3.98

    Effective Languages (L*)

  • 5.96

    Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Notable Works

The witches of Eastwick
Rabbit redux
Fiction
It's 1969, and the times are changing. America is about to land a man on the moon, the Vietnamese war is in full swing, and racial tension is on the rise. Things just aren't as simple as they used to be - at least, not for Rabbit Angstrom. His wife has left him with his teenage son, his job is under threat and his mother is dying. Suddenly, into his confused life - and home - comes Jill, an eighteen-year-old runaway who becomes his lover. But when she invites her friend to stay, a young black radical named Skeeter, the pair's fragile harmony soon begins to fail ...
Couples
The poorhouse fair
Almshouses

Among WRITERS

Among writers, John Updike ranks 1,132 out of 7,302Before him are Edmund Spenser, John Grisham, August von Kotzebue, Lycophron, Clément Marot, and Sami Frashëri. After him are Fredric Brown, Rigas Feraios, Bharata Muni, Saint Gall, Michel Butor, and Arnold Zweig.

Most Popular Writers in Wikipedia

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1932, John Updike ranks 80Before him are Vladimir Ivashko, Abdul Halim Khaddam, Jean-Jacques Sempé, Marisa Pavan, Fernando Arrabal, and Gyula Horn. After him are Lalo Schifrin, Emmanuelle Arsan, Alan Bean, Petula Clark, Peter Eisenman, and Alfredo Ferrari. Among people deceased in 2009, John Updike ranks 40Before him are Leszek Kołakowski, Juan Almeida Bosque, Velupillai Prabhakaran, Ephraim Katzir, Marek Edelman, and Hussein-Ali Montazeri. After him are Amin al-Hafiz, Pavle, Serbian Patriarch, Norman Borlaug, Ertuğrul Osman, Qian Xuesen, and Rafael Caldera.

Others Born in 1932

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Others Deceased in 2009

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In United States

Among people born in United States, John Updike ranks 1,335 out of 20,380Before him are Ronald Dworkin (1931), William Boeing (1881), Lee de Forest (1873), Jean Tatlock (1914), Raoul Walsh (1887), and Eric Roberts (1956). After him are Fredric Brown (1906), Madam C. J. Walker (1867), Britney Spears (1981), Adam West (1928), Richard Farnsworth (1920), and Richard Donner (1930).

Among WRITERS In United States

Among writers born in United States, John Updike ranks 126Before him are Zelda Fitzgerald (1900), Valerie Solanas (1936), Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840), Michael Connelly (1956), Norman Mailer (1923), and John Grisham (1955). After him are Fredric Brown (1906), Anne Rice (1941), E. Howard Hunt (1918), John Jacob Astor IV (1864), Solomon Northup (1808), and Dan Simmons (1948).