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Contact: David West
News Bureau
Northwestern State University
Natchitoches, LA 71497
(318) 357-6466
1/16/98
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NATCHITOCHES - Author 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 one of this country's best known authors for almost 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.
"John Updike is one of our most distinguished writers, a great novelist but also a remarkable essayist and poet," said Dr. Karen Cole, an associate professor of English in the Louisiana Scholars' College at NSU. "No one has more vividly and thoughtfully represented in fiction the experience of the American middle class, and especially American men, their yearnings and disappointments and their small, hard-won triumphs. We're fortunate to have such an elegant and wise writer on our campus, and students in our courses look forward to his visit."
Updike was awarded 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.