The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin announced days ago that they have acquired the archive of writer Ian McEwan, and an email from an employee at the Center confirmed that they believe “there is some correspondence with Updike in there. We will know more once the collection has been processed and catalogued.”

“Acclaimed Writer Ian McEwan’s Archive Acquired by Harry Ransom Center”

McEwan has written frequently “On John Updike,” as he did for the March 12, 2009 issue of The New York Review of Books. After Updike’s death, his remarks were included in a round-up of well-known writers published by The Guardian on January 27, 2009:

“He was a modern master, a colossal figure in American letters, the finest writer working in English. He dazzled us with his interests and intellectual curiosity, and he turned a beautiful sentence. Religion, sex, science, urban decay, small-town life, the life of the heart, the betrayals—who can follow him? Updike gave the impression he had a lot more writing to do. We are all the poorer now.”

Maybe the McEwan archive will shed some light about what other writing Updike had in mind.

The Harry Ransom Center was in the running for the John Updike archives, which eventually went to Harvard.