Author John Updike dead at 76

BOSTON, Jan. 27 (UPI) -- Celebrated author John Updike died of lung cancer Tuesday in Massachusetts, his publisher announced. He was 76.

The two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and Pennsylvania native was a long-time resident of Beverly Farms and died at an area hospice, The Boston Globe reported.

"It is with great sadness that we report that John Updike died this morning at the age of 76, after a battle with lung cancer," said a statement posted on the Alfred A. Knopf publishing company's Web site Tuesday. "John Updike was one of our greatest writers. He was a part of the Knopf family for over 50 years. We will all miss him terribly."

Updike published his first book, a collection of poems called "The Carpentered Hen" in 1958. His volume "My Father's Tears and Other Stories" is slated to be published in June.

In between those two works, he published the novels "Rabbit, Run," "Rabbit Redux," "Rabbit is Rich," "Rabbit at Rest," "The Witches of Eastwick," "A Month of Sundays," "Roger's Version" "Bech: A Book," "Bech is Back" and "Bech at Bay."

"There's a kind of confessional impulse that not every literate, intelligent person has," Updike told The Globe in 1990. "A crazy belief that you have some exciting news about being alive, and I guess that, more than talent, is what separates those who do it from those who think they'd like to do it. That your witness to the universe can't be duplicated, that only you can provide it, and that it's worth providing."

The Harvard graduate is survived by his wife, Martha; two sons, David and Michael; two daughters, Elizabeth and Miranda; three stepsons and several grandchildren.

Funeral arrangements were not immediately announced, The Globe said.