Colson Whitehead

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Lore & Background

Whitehead is one of only four writers to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once, the others being Booth Tarkington, William Faulkner, and John Updike. Updike himself 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 Updike's stories, reviews, and poems appeared in *The New Yorker* starting in 1954. Updike's most famous work is his "Rabbit" series (the novels *Rabbit, Run*; *Rabbit Redux*; *Rabbit Is Rich*; *Rabbit at Rest*; and the novella *Rabbit Remembered*), which chronicles the life of the middle-class everyman Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom over the course of several decades, from young adulthood to death. Both *Rabbit Is Rich* (1981) and *Rabbit at Rest* (1990) were awarded the Pulitzer Prize. Updike described his subject as "the American small town, Protestant middle class." His fiction is distinguished by its attention to the concerns, passions, and suffering of average Americans, its emphasis on Christian theology, and its preoccupation with sexuality and sensual detail. Updike's highly distinctive prose style features a rich, unusual, sometimes arcane vocabulary as conveyed through the eyes of "a wry, intelligent authorial voice that describes the physical world extravagantly while remaining squarely in the realist tradition." He described his style as an attempt "to give the mundane its beautiful due."

Reader's Guide

Colson Whitehead's significance is rooted in his place among the only four writers to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once. The source does not provide details about Whitehead's own novels, his background, or his other honors. It only establishes that he is one of the four writers who have achieved this specific distinction, alongside Booth Tarkington, William Faulkner, and John Updike. The source focuses entirely on Updike's life, career, and works, including his early life in Reading and Shillington, Pennsylvania, his education at Harvard University, his time at *The New Yorker*, and his major works like the Rabbit series and *Couples*. Updike graduated from Shillington High School as co-valedictorian and class president in 1950 and received a full scholarship to Harvard University, where he was the roommate of Christopher Lasch during their first year. He graduated summa cum laude in 1954 with a degree in English and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. Upon graduation, Updike attended the Ruskin School of Art at the University of Oxford with the ambition of becoming a cartoonist. After returning to the United States, Updike and his family moved to New York, where he became a regular contributor to *The New Yorker*. This was the beginning of his professional writing career.

Did You Know?

• Colson Whitehead is one of only four writers to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once, the others being Booth Tarkington, William Faulkner, and John Updike.
• John Updike, one of the other four writers, published more than twenty novels, more than a dozen short-story collections, as well as poetry, art and literary criticism and children's books.
• Updike's most famous work is his 'Rabbit' series, which includes the novels *Rabbit, Run*; *Rabbit Redux*; *Rabbit Is Rich*; *Rabbit at Rest*; and the novella *Rabbit Remembered*.
• Both *Rabbit Is Rich* (1981) and *Rabbit at Rest* (1990) were awarded the Pulitzer Prize.
• Updike graduated summa cum laude from Harvard University in 1954 with a degree in English and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.