Contact: David West
News Bureau
Northwestern State University
Natchitoches, LA 71497
(318) 357-6466

3/4/98

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NATCHITOCHES - One of America's best-known and honored authors, John Updike, will deliver a lecture and present readings from his works at Northwestern State University Wednesday, March 11 at 10 a.m. in the A.A. Fredericks Auditorium. Admission is free and open to the public. Classes at NSU are dismissed during the lecture.

Updike has been an important part of the country's literary scene for four decades. A novelist, critic, short story writer, poet, essayist and dramatist, Updike is a prolific writer. He has written more than 20 novels, 17 books of poetry, 22 collections of short stories and numerous essays, adaptations, plays and children's books.

In 1954, he sold his first short story, "Friends from Philadelphia," to The New Yorker and was offered a staff position at the magazine later that year. His first book, a collection of poetry, "The Carpentered Hen and Other Tame Creatures," was published in 1958. He published his first novel, "The Poorhouse Fair," the next year.

He has won two Pulitzer Prizes for two books that were among four volumes telling the story of the fictional Robert (Harry) Angstrom. Updike was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1982 for "Rabbit is Rich" and another Pulitzer in 1990 for "Rabbit at Rest." He is only the third American to receive the Pulitzer Prize on two occasions.

Other books by Updike include "The Witches of Eastwick," which was later adapted for a film, "Brazil," and his latest novel, Toward The End of Time," which was published in September.

Updike was the recipient of Fulbright and Guggenheim fellowships. He has received numerous other major awards for his fiction and short stories including the National Book Award, American Book Award, National Book Critics Circle Award, O. Henry Award and the Medal of Honor for Literature from the National Arts Club. In 1989, Updike received the National Medal of Arts from President Bush in a White House ceremony. Last September, he received the Campion Award from the Jesuit magazine as a "distinguished Christian person of letters."

Updike joins a list of prominent writers who have appeared as part of Northwestern's Distinguished Lecture Series over the past 28 years including Ellen Gilchrist, Maya Angelou, W.P. Kinsella, Alex Haley, David McCullough, Ray Bradbury, E.J. Gaines, William F. Buckley, John Berendt, and Wendy Wasserstein.

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