John Updike (1932– ) is regarded by many critics and readers as one of America's great contemporary novelists. He grew up as an only child in Shillington, Pennsylvania. Hay fever, psoriasis, and a speech impediment isolated him from his classmates and compelled him to take up the solitary pursuits of drawing and writing. After graduating from Harvard, he spent a year in England at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art. Deciding on a career as a writer, he joined the staff of the New Yorker magazine.

Updike's novels and short stories usually deal with the tensions, frustrations, and tragedies of contemporary life. Rabbit, Run (1960) was the first installment in Updike's continuing saga of Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, which would later include Rabbit Redux (1971), Rabbit Is Rich (1981), and Rabbit at Rest (1990). The series traces the life of Angstrom, a successful high school basketball player, from the early days of his precarious marriage to an alcoholic wife, through the turbulent 1960s, and into the compromises of middle and old age. Updike's other notable novels include The Poorhouse Fair (1959); The Centaur (1963), which earned the National Book Award; Of the Farm (1965); Couples (1968); A Month of Sundays (1975); the Witches of Eastwick (1984), later made into a major motion picture; In the Beauty of the Lilies (1996); and Toward the End of Time (1997). His volumes of short stories include Pigeon Feathers (1962), The Music School (1967), Bech: A Book (1970), Museums and Women and Other Stories (1972), and Afterlife (1994). Updike has also published volumes of poetry and essays.