NEW YORK Prolific Pulitzer Prize-winning US novelist John Updike, whose books and short stories chronicled small-town American life, has died at age 76, his publisher Knopf said.

It is with great sadness that I report that John Updike died this morning at the age of 76, after a battle with lung cancer, Knopf publicity director Nicholas Latimer said in a statement.

Over a career spanning more than half a century, Updike published at least a dozen short story collections and 25 novels.

His most famous books were in the Rabbit series, including Rabbit, Run and Rabbit Redux. He also wrote hundreds of short stories, poetry, literary criticism and reviews in The New Yorker magazine.

He was one of our greatest writers and he will be sorely missed, Latimer said. The Washington-based Academy of Achievement described Updike as one of Americas premier men of letters. Updike recounted how a sickly childhood on a farm in Pennsylvania prepared him for a cerebral life.

He suffered from psoriasis and a stammer, ailments that set him apart from his peers. He found solace in writing, and won a scholarship to Harvard, the Academy of Achievement noted.

Updike went on to edit the famous Lampoon humor magazine at Harvard and then published a poem and fiction in the New Yorker soon after graduating.

My mother had dreams of being a writer and I used to see her type in the front room. The front room is also where I would go when I was sick so I would sit there and watch her, Updike said.