Monday 2 February 2009

Deaths of John Updike and John Mortimer

John Updike and John MortimerJanuary saw the deaths of two of the English language’s most prolific authors – John Updike and John Mortimer. The American author John Updike will be best remembered for his four 'Rabbit' novels – Rabbit, Run; Rabbit Redux; Rabbit is Rich and Rabbit at Rest. Chronicling the adventures of one Harry Rabbit Angstrom - high school basketball star turned car salesman, householder and errant husband - and his efforts to cope with the seismic public changes (from feminism to the counterculture to antiwar protests) that rattled his cozy nest, the Rabbit novels captured four decades of middle-class American life. Both Rabbit is Rich and Rabbit at Rest received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

John Mortimer was a successful barrister, award-winning playwright, novelist and creator of one of British television's most adored character, Horace Rumpole. His experiences at the Bar afforded the material for the creation of Rumpole, the shambling but stylish barrister whose quirky devotion to apparently hopeless causes made him one of the most compelling characters in books and on television.

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