Updike Biography Is In the Works.

Three weeks after the death of John Updike, HarperCollins said in a release that it had acquired a biography of the author, winner of two Pulitzer Prizes and two National Book Awards, to be written by Adam Begley, the books editor of The New York Observer. In an interview, Mr. Begley said he had profiled Updike for Mirabella magazine in the 1990s and for The Observer in 2003. ''He was the world's smoothest interview,'' Mr. Begley said. ''Almost every word out of his mouth was quotable.'' Additionally, he said, his father, the novelist Louis Begley, and Updike had been classmates at Harvard, where they both received degrees in English literature. Adam Begley said that although he had written a letter of condolence to the author's widow, Martha Updike, it was ''too soon'' to ask her about access to her husband's papers at the Houghton Library at Harvard. The biography is expected to be published in 2011. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]