Our Geo Quiz asked you to name a fictional African state that figures in John Updike's 1978 novel, The Coup. The story is set in the fictional nation of Kush so that's the answer.

Kush is also the name of an ancient African civilization that predates the Egyptian pyramids.

This civilization thrived in a region around present-day Khartoum -- the capital of Sudan.
John Updike
But Updike may have had a DIFFERENT African nation in mind when he wrote The Coup.

It's NIGER -- where there was a REAL coup in 1974.

Updike -- who passed away yesterday -- visited Africa in 1973, on a Fulbright fellowship.

But -- on the whole -- his African experience was limited.

Updike admitted as much in an interview with Don Swaim at the CBS Radio studio in New York. John Updike speaking with Don Swaim in 1984.

"The Coup" was just one of the more than 50 books written by Updike.

The Pulitzer-Prize-winning author died yesterday of lung cancer at the age of 76.

Thanks to our colleagues at "Wired for Books" -- part of the WOUB "Center for Public Media" at Ohio University.