Philip Milton Roth is an American novelist. He gained fame with the 1959
novellaA novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...
Goodbye, ColumbusGoodbye, Columbus is a 1959 book by American novelist Philip Roth. It was the writer's first book: a collection of five short stories and one novella, also titled "Goodbye, Columbus"....
, an irreverent and humorous portrait of Jewish-American life that earned him a
National Book AwardThe National Book Awards are a set of American literary awards. Started in 1950, the Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the current year. In 1989 the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization which now oversees and manages the National Book...
. In 1969 he became a major celebrity with the publication of the controversial
Portnoy's ComplaintPortnoy's Complaint is the American novel that turned its author Philip Roth into a major celebrity, sparking a storm of controversy over its explicit and candid treatment of sexuality, including detailed depictions of masturbation using various props including a piece of liver...
, the humorous and sexually explicit psychoanalytical monologue of "a lust-ridden, mother-addicted young Jewish bachelor," filled with "intimate, shameful detail, and coarse, abusive language."
Roth has since become one of the most honored authors of his generation: his books have twice been awarded the
National Book AwardThe National Book Awards are a set of American literary awards. Started in 1950, the Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the current year. In 1989 the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization which now oversees and manages the National Book...
, twice the
National Book Critics CircleThe National Book Critics Circle is an American tax-exempt organization for active book reviewers. Its flagship is the National Book Critics Circle Award....
award, and three times the PEN/Faulkner Award. He received a
Pulitzer PrizeThe Pulitzer Prize for Fiction has been awarded for distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life. It originated as the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel, which was awarded between 1918 and 1947.-1910s:...
for his 1997 novel,
American PastoralAmerican Pastoral is a Philip Roth novel concerning Seymour "Swede" Levov, a Jewish-American businessman and former high school athlete from Newark, New Jersey. Levov's happy and conventional upper middle class life is ruined by the domestic social and political turmoil of the 1960s, which in the...
, which featured his best-known character,
Nathan ZuckermanNathan Zuckerman is a fictional character who appears as the narrator or protagonist of many of Philip Roth's works of fiction.-Character:...
, the subject of many other of Roth's novels. His 2001 novel
The Human StainThe Human Stain is a novel by Philip Roth. It is set in late 1990s rural New England. Its first person narrator is 65-year-old author Nathan Zuckerman, a character in previous Roth novels, including American Pastoral and I Married a Communist ; these two books form a loose trilogy with The Human...
, another Zuckerman novel, was awarded the United Kingdom's
WH Smith Literary AwardThe WH Smith Literary Award was an award founded in 1959 by British high street retailer W H Smith. Its founding aim was stated to be to "encourage and bring international esteem to authors of the British Commonwealth"; originally open to all residents of the UK, the Commonwealth and the Republic...
for the best book of the year. His fiction, set frequently in
NewarkNewark is the largest city in the American state of New Jersey, and the seat of Essex County. As of the 2010 United States Census, Newark had a population of 277,140, maintaining its status as the largest municipality in New Jersey. It is the 68th largest city in the U.S...
,
New JerseyNew Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
, is known for its intensely
autobiographicalAn autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...
character, for philosophically and formally blurring the distinction between reality and fiction, for its "supple, ingenious style," and for its provocative explorations of
JewishJewish identity is the objective or subjective state of perceiving oneself as a Jew and as relating to being Jewish. Under the broader definition, the Jewish identity does not depend on whether or not a person is regarded as a Jew by others, or by an external set of religious, or legal, or...
and American identity.
Life
Philip Roth grew up in the
WeequahicWeequahic is a residential neighborhood in Newark, New Jersey's South Ward. It is separated from Clinton Hill by Hawthorne Avenue on the north, and bordered by Hillside Township and the city of Irvington on the west, Newark Liberty International Airport and Dayton on the east, and the city of...
neighborhood of
Newark, New JerseyNewark is the largest city in the American state of New Jersey, and the seat of Essex County. As of the 2010 United States Census, Newark had a population of 277,140, maintaining its status as the largest municipality in New Jersey. It is the 68th largest city in the U.S...
, as the second child of first-generation American parents, Jews of Galician descent, and graduated from Newark's
Weequahic High SchoolWeequahic High School is a public high school in Newark in Essex County, New Jersey. The school is operated by the Newark Public Schools and is located at 279 Chancellor Avenue....
in 1950. Roth attended
Bucknell UniversityBucknell University is a private liberal arts university located alongside the West Branch Susquehanna River in the rolling countryside of Central Pennsylvania in the town of Lewisburg, 30 miles southeast of Williamsport and 60 miles north of Harrisburg. The university consists of the College of...
, earning a degree in English. He pursued graduate studies at the
University of ChicagoThe University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
, where he received an
M.A.A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...
in
English literatureEnglish literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, J....
in 1955 and worked briefly as an instructor in the university's writing program. Roth taught creative writing at the
University of IowaThe University of Iowa is a public state-supported research university located in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. It is the oldest public university in the state. The university is organized into eleven colleges granting undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees...
and
Princeton UniversityPrinceton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
. He continued his academic career at the
University of PennsylvaniaThe University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
, where he taught comparative literature before retiring from teaching in 1991.
While at
ChicagoThe University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
, Roth met the novelist
Saul BellowSaul Bellow was a Canadian-born Jewish American writer. For his literary contributions, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the National Medal of Arts...
, as well as Margaret Martinson, who became his first wife. Their separation in 1963, along with Martinson's death in a car crash in 1968, left a lasting mark on Roth's literary output. Specifically, Martinson was the inspiration for female characters in several of Roth's novels, including Lucy Nelson in
When She Was GoodWhen She Was Good is Philip Roth's only novel with a female protagonist, Lucy Nelson. It derives its title from a line in a nursery rhyme composed by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:There was a little girlWho had a little curl...
, and Maureen Tarnopol in
My Life As a ManMy Life As a Man is American writer Philip Roth's seventh novel.-Summary:The work is split into two sections: the first section, "Useful Fictions," consisting of two short stories about a character named Nathan Zuckerman , and the second section,...
. Between the end of his studies and the publication of his first book in 1959, Roth served two years in the
United States ArmyThe United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
and then wrote short fiction and criticism for various magazines, including movie reviews for
The New RepublicThe magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
. Events in Roth's personal life have occasionally been the subject of media scrutiny. According to his pseudo-confessional novel
Operation ShylockOperation Shylock: A Confession is novelist Philip Roth's 19th book and was published in 1993.-Summary:The novel follows narrator "Philip Roth" on a journey to Israel, where he attends the trial of accused war criminal John Demjanjuk and becomes involved in an intelligence mission—the "Operation...
(1993), Roth suffered a
nervous breakdownMental breakdown is a non-medical term used to describe an acute, time-limited phase of a specific disorder that presents primarily with features of depression or anxiety.-Definition:...
in the late 1980s. In 1990, he married his long-time companion, English actress
Claire BloomClaire Bloom is an English film and stage actress.-Early life:Bloom was born in the North London suburb of Finchley, the daughter of Elizabeth and Edward Max Blume, who worked in sales...
. In 1994 they separated, and in 1996 Bloom published a memoir, Leaving a Doll's House, which described the couple's marriage in detail, much of which was unflattering to Roth. Certain aspects of
I Married a CommunistI Married a Communist is a Philip Roth novel concerning the rise and fall of Ira Ringold, known as "Iron Rinn." The story is narrated by Nathan Zuckerman, and is one of a trio of Zuckerman novels Roth wrote in the 1990s depicting the postwar history of Newark, New Jersey and its residents.Ira and...
have been regarded by critics as veiled rebuttals to accusations put forth in Bloom's memoir.
Career
Roth's first book,
Goodbye, ColumbusGoodbye, Columbus is a 1959 book by American novelist Philip Roth. It was the writer's first book: a collection of five short stories and one novella, also titled "Goodbye, Columbus"....
, a
novellaA novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...
and five
short storiesA short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...
, won the
National Book AwardThe National Book Awards are a set of American literary awards. Started in 1950, the Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the current year. In 1989 the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization which now oversees and manages the National Book...
in 1960, and afterwards he published two novels,
Letting GoLetting Go is the first full-length novel written by Philip Roth and is set in the 1950s.- Plot summary:Gabe Wallach is a graduate student in literature at the University of Iowa and an ardent admirer of Henry James. Fearing that the intellectual demands of a life in literature might leave him...
and
When She Was GoodWhen She Was Good is Philip Roth's only novel with a female protagonist, Lucy Nelson. It derives its title from a line in a nursery rhyme composed by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:There was a little girlWho had a little curl...
. However, it was not until the publication of his third novel,
Portnoy's ComplaintPortnoy's Complaint is the American novel that turned its author Philip Roth into a major celebrity, sparking a storm of controversy over its explicit and candid treatment of sexuality, including detailed depictions of masturbation using various props including a piece of liver...
, in 1969 that Roth enjoyed widespread commercial and critical success. During the 1970s Roth experimented in various modes, from the political satire
Our GangOur Gang is Philip Roth's fifth novel. A marked departure from his previous book, the popular Portnoy's Complaint, Our Gang is a political satire written in the form of a closet drama. Centered around the character of "Trick E...
to the
KafkaesqueFranz Kafka was a culturally influential German-language author of short stories and novels. Contemporary critics and academics, including Vladimir Nabokov, regard Kafka as one of the best writers of the 20th century...
The BreastThe Breast is a novella by Philip Roth, in which the main character, David Kepesh, becomes a 155-pound breast. Throughout the book Kepesh fights with himself. Part of him wishes to give in to bodily desires, while the other part of him wants to be rational...
. By the end of the decade Roth had created his alter ego Nathan Zuckerman. In a series of highly self-referential novels and novellas that followed between 1979 and 1986, Zuckerman appeared as either the main character or an interlocutor.
Sabbath's TheaterSabbath's Theater is a novel by Philip Roth about the exploits of 64-year-old Mickey Sabbath. It received the National Book Award for fiction in 1995.-Summary and themes:Mickey Sabbath Sabbath's Theater (1995, ISBN 0-679-77259-6) is a novel by Philip Roth about the exploits of 64-year-old Mickey...
(1995) has perhaps Roth's most lecherous protagonist, Mickey Sabbath, a disgraced former puppeteer. In complete contrast, the first volume of Roth's second Zuckerman trilogy, 1997's
American PastoralAmerican Pastoral is a Philip Roth novel concerning Seymour "Swede" Levov, a Jewish-American businessman and former high school athlete from Newark, New Jersey. Levov's happy and conventional upper middle class life is ruined by the domestic social and political turmoil of the 1960s, which in the...
, focuses on the life of virtuous Newark athletics star Swede Levov and the tragedy that befalls him when his teenage daughter transforms into a domestic terrorist during the late 1960s.
I Married a CommunistI Married a Communist is a Philip Roth novel concerning the rise and fall of Ira Ringold, known as "Iron Rinn." The story is narrated by Nathan Zuckerman, and is one of a trio of Zuckerman novels Roth wrote in the 1990s depicting the postwar history of Newark, New Jersey and its residents.Ira and...
(1998) focuses on the McCarthy era. Allegedly inspired by the life of the writer
Anatole BroyardAnatole Paul Broyard was an American writer, literary critic and editor for The New York Times. In addition to his many reviews and columns, he published short stories, essays and two books during his lifetime...
,
The Human StainThe Human Stain is a novel by Philip Roth. It is set in late 1990s rural New England. Its first person narrator is 65-year-old author Nathan Zuckerman, a character in previous Roth novels, including American Pastoral and I Married a Communist ; these two books form a loose trilogy with The Human...
examines
identity politicsIdentity politics are political arguments that focus upon the self interest and perspectives of self-identified social interest groups and ways in which people's politics may be shaped by aspects of their identity through race, class, religion, sexual orientation or traditional dominance...
in 1990s America.
The Dying AnimalThe Dying Animal is a short novel by the US writer Philip Roth. It tells the story of senior literature professor David Kepesh, renowned for his literature-themed radio show. Kepesh is finally destroyed by his inability to comprehend emotional commitment...
(2001) is a short novel about
erosEros , in Greek mythology, was the Greek god of love. His Roman counterpart was Cupid . Some myths make him a primordial god, while in other myths, he is the son of Aphrodite....
and death that revisits literary professor David Kepesh, protagonist of two 1970s works,
The BreastThe Breast is a novella by Philip Roth, in which the main character, David Kepesh, becomes a 155-pound breast. Throughout the book Kepesh fights with himself. Part of him wishes to give in to bodily desires, while the other part of him wants to be rational...
and
The Professor of DesireThe Professor of Desire is a 1977 novel by Philip Roth. It describes the youth, the college years and the academic career of professor David Kepesh, and beside that, his sexual desires.-Plot summary:David is emotionally insecure...
. In
The Plot Against AmericaThe Plot Against America is a novel by Philip Roth published in 2004. It is an alternate history in which Franklin Delano Roosevelt is defeated in the presidential election of 1940 by Charles Lindbergh.-Plot introduction:...
(2004), Roth imagines an alternate American history in which
Charles LindberghCharles Augustus Lindbergh was an American aviator, author, inventor, explorer, and social activist.Lindbergh, a 25-year-old U.S...
, aviator hero and isolationist, is elected U.S. president in 1940, and the U.S. negotiates an understanding with Hitler's Nazi Germany and embarks on its own program of anti-Semitism.
Roth's novel
EverymanEveryman is a novel by Philip Roth, published by Houghton Mifflin in May 2006. The audiobook version is narrated by George Guidall and published by Recorded Books in 2006. It won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction in 2007. It is Roth's third novel to receive the prize.-Plot summary:The book...
, a meditation on illness, aging, desire, and death, was published in May 2006. For Everyman Roth won his third PEN/Faulkner Award, making him the only person so honored.
Exit GhostExit Ghost is a 2007 novel by Philip Roth. It is the ninth, and Roth says his last, novel featuring Nathan Zuckerman.-Plot summary:The plot centers on Zuckerman's return home to New York after eleven years in New England. The purpose of Zuckerman's journey, which he takes the week before the 2004 U.S...
, which again features Nathan Zuckerman, was released in October 2007. According to the book's publisher, it is the last Zuckerman novel.
IndignationIndignation is a novel by Philip Roth, released by Houghton Mifflin on September 16, 2008. It is his twenty-ninth book.-Plot:Set in America in 1951, the second year of the Korean War, Indignation is narrated by Marcus Messner, a college student from Newark, New Jersey, who describes his sophomore...
, Roth's 29th book, was published on September 16, 2008. Set in 1951, during the
Korean WarThe Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
, it follows Marcus Messner's departure from Newark to Ohio's Winesburg College, where he begins his sophomore year. In 2009, Roth's 30th book
The HumblingThe Humbling is a novel by Philip Roth published in the fall of 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. It is Roth's 30th book and concerns "...an aging stage actor whose empty life is altered by a 'counterplot of unusual erotic desire.'"-Part one:...
was published, which told the story of the last performances of Simon Axler, a celebrated stage actor. Roth’s 31st book, Nemesis, was published on October 5, 2010. According to the book's notes, Nemesis is the final in a series of four "short novels," which also included
EverymanEveryman is a novel by Philip Roth, published by Houghton Mifflin in May 2006. The audiobook version is narrated by George Guidall and published by Recorded Books in 2006. It won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction in 2007. It is Roth's third novel to receive the prize.-Plot summary:The book...
,
IndignationIndignation is a novel by Philip Roth, released by Houghton Mifflin on September 16, 2008. It is his twenty-ninth book.-Plot:Set in America in 1951, the second year of the Korean War, Indignation is narrated by Marcus Messner, a college student from Newark, New Jersey, who describes his sophomore...
and
The HumblingThe Humbling is a novel by Philip Roth published in the fall of 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. It is Roth's 30th book and concerns "...an aging stage actor whose empty life is altered by a 'counterplot of unusual erotic desire.'"-Part one:...
.
In October 2009, during an interview with Tina Brown of The Daily Beast website to promote The Humbling, Roth considered the future of literature and its place in society, stating his belief that within 25 years the reading of novels will be regarded as a "cultic" activity:
I was being optimistic about 25 years really. I think it's going to be cultic. I think always people will be reading them but it will be a small group of people. Maybe more people than now read Latin poetry, but somewhere in that range... To read a novel requires a certain amount of concentration, focus, devotion to the reading. If you read a novel in more than two weeks you don't read the novel really. So I think that kind of concentration and focus and attentiveness is hard to come by — it's hard to find huge numbers of people, large numbers of people, significant numbers of people, who have those qualities[.]
When asked his opinion on the emergence of digital books and e-books as possibly replacing printed copy, Roth was equally negative and downbeat about the prospect:
The book can't compete with the screen. It couldn't compete [in the] beginning with the movie screen. It couldn't compete with the television screen, and it can't compete with the computer screen... Now we have all those screens, so against all those screens a book couldn't measure up.
This interview is not the first time that Roth has expressed pessimism over the future of the novel and its significance in recent years. Talking to the Observers Robert McCrum in 2001, he said that "I'm not good at finding 'encouraging' features in American culture. I doubt that aesthetic literacy has much of a future here."
Influences and themes
Much of Roth's fiction revolves around semi-autobiographical themes, while self-consciously and playfully addressing the perils of establishing connections between the author Philip Roth and his fictional lives and voices, including narrators and protagonists such as David Kepesh and
Nathan ZuckermanNathan Zuckerman is a fictional character who appears as the narrator or protagonist of many of Philip Roth's works of fiction.-Character:...
or even the character "Philip Roth", of which there are two in
Operation ShylockOperation Shylock: A Confession is novelist Philip Roth's 19th book and was published in 1993.-Summary:The novel follows narrator "Philip Roth" on a journey to Israel, where he attends the trial of accused war criminal John Demjanjuk and becomes involved in an intelligence mission—the "Operation...
. In Roth's fiction, the question of authorship is intertwined with the theme of the idealistic, secular Jewish-American son who attempts to distance himself from Jewish customs and traditions, and from what he perceives as the at times suffocating influence of parents, rabbis, and other community leaders. Jewish sons such as most infamously Alexander Portnoy and later
Nathan ZuckermanNathan Zuckerman is a fictional character who appears as the narrator or protagonist of many of Philip Roth's works of fiction.-Character:...
rebel by denouncing Judaism, while at the same time remaining attached to a sense of Jewish identity. Roth's fiction has been described by critics as pervaded by "a kind of alienation that is enlivened and exacerbated by what binds it".
Roth's first work,
Goodbye, ColumbusGoodbye, Columbus is a 1959 book by American novelist Philip Roth. It was the writer's first book: a collection of five short stories and one novella, also titled "Goodbye, Columbus"....
, for his irreverent humor of the life of middle-class Jewish Americans, was controversial among reviewers, which were highly polarized in their judgments; a reviewer criticized it as infused with a sense of self-loathing. In response, Roth, in his 1963 essay "Writing About Jews" (collected in Reading Myself and Others), maintained that he wanted to explore the conflict between the call to Jewish solidarity and his desire to be free to question the values and morals of middle-class Jewish Americans uncertain of their identities in an era of cultural assimilation and upward social mobility:
The cry "Watch out for the goyim!" at times seems more the expression of an unconscious wish than of a warning: Oh that they were out there, so that we could be together here! A rumor of persecution, a taste of exile, might even bring with it the old world of feelings and habits — something to replace the new world of social accessibility and moral indifference, the world which tempts all our promiscuous instincts, and where one cannot always figure out what a Jew is that a Christian is not.
In Roth's fiction, the exploration of "promiscuous instincts" within the context of Jewish-American lives, mainly from a male viewpoint, plays an important role. In the words of critic
Hermione LeeHermione Lee, CBE is President of Wolfson College, Oxford and was lately Goldsmiths' Professor of English Literature in the University of Oxford and Professorial Fellow of New College. She is a Fellow of the British Academy and of the Royal Society of Literature.-Biography:Hermione Lee grew up in...
:
Philip Roth's fiction strains to shed the burden of Jewish traditions and proscriptions. … The liberated Jewish consciousness, let loose into the disintegration of the American Dream, finds itself deracinated and homeless. American society and politics, by the late sixties, are a grotesque travesty of what Jewish immigrants had traveled towards: liberty, peace, security, a decent liberal democracy.
While Roth's fiction has strong autobiographical influences, it has also incorporated social commentary and political satire, most obviously in
Our GangOur Gang is Philip Roth's fifth novel. A marked departure from his previous book, the popular Portnoy's Complaint, Our Gang is a political satire written in the form of a closet drama. Centered around the character of "Trick E...
and
Operation ShylockOperation Shylock: A Confession is novelist Philip Roth's 19th book and was published in 1993.-Summary:The novel follows narrator "Philip Roth" on a journey to Israel, where he attends the trial of accused war criminal John Demjanjuk and becomes involved in an intelligence mission—the "Operation...
. Since the
1990sFile:1990s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: The Hubble Space Telescope floats in space after it was taken up in 1990; American F-16s and F-15s fly over burning oil fields and the USA Lexie in Operation Desert Storm, also known as the 1991 Gulf War; The signing of the Oslo Accords on...
, Roth's fiction has often combined autobiographical elements with retrospective dramatizations of postwar American life. Roth has described
American PastoralAmerican Pastoral is a Philip Roth novel concerning Seymour "Swede" Levov, a Jewish-American businessman and former high school athlete from Newark, New Jersey. Levov's happy and conventional upper middle class life is ruined by the domestic social and political turmoil of the 1960s, which in the...
and the two following novels as a loosely connected "American trilogy". All these novels deal with aspects of the postwar era against the backdrop of the nostalgically remembered Jewish-American childhood of Nathan Zuckerman, in which the experience of life on
the American home front during the Second World WarThis page, United States home front during World War II, covers the developments within the United States, 1940–1945, to support its efforts during World War II.-Economics:...
features prominently.
In much of Roth's fiction, the 1940s, comprising Roth's and Zuckerman's childhood, mark a high point of American idealism and social cohesion. A more satirical treatment of the patriotism and idealism of the war years is evident in Roth's more comic novels, such as
Portnoy's ComplaintPortnoy's Complaint is the American novel that turned its author Philip Roth into a major celebrity, sparking a storm of controversy over its explicit and candid treatment of sexuality, including detailed depictions of masturbation using various props including a piece of liver...
and
Sabbath's TheaterSabbath's Theater is a novel by Philip Roth about the exploits of 64-year-old Mickey Sabbath. It received the National Book Award for fiction in 1995.-Summary and themes:Mickey Sabbath Sabbath's Theater (1995, ISBN 0-679-77259-6) is a novel by Philip Roth about the exploits of 64-year-old Mickey...
. In
The Plot Against AmericaThe Plot Against America is a novel by Philip Roth published in 2004. It is an alternate history in which Franklin Delano Roosevelt is defeated in the presidential election of 1940 by Charles Lindbergh.-Plot introduction:...
, the alternate history of the war years dramatizes the prevalence of anti-Semitism and racism in America during the war years, despite the promotion of increasingly influential anti-racist ideals in wartime. Nonetheless, the 1940s, and the
New DealThe New Deal was a series of economic programs implemented in the United States between 1933 and 1936. They were passed by the U.S. Congress during the first term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The programs were Roosevelt's responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call...
era of the 1930s that preceded it, are portrayed in much of Roth's recent fiction as a heroic phase in American history. A sense of frustration with social and political developments in the US since the
1940sFile:1940s decade montage.png|Above title bar: events which happened during World War II : From left to right: Troops in an LCVP landing craft approaching "Omaha" Beach on "D-Day"; Adolf Hitler visits Paris, soon after the Battle of France; The Holocaust occurred during the war as Nazi Germany...
is palpable in the American trilogy and
Exit GhostExit Ghost is a 2007 novel by Philip Roth. It is the ninth, and Roth says his last, novel featuring Nathan Zuckerman.-Plot summary:The plot centers on Zuckerman's return home to New York after eleven years in New England. The purpose of Zuckerman's journey, which he takes the week before the 2004 U.S...
, but had already been present in Roth's earlier works that contained political and social satire, such as
Our GangOur Gang is Philip Roth's fifth novel. A marked departure from his previous book, the popular Portnoy's Complaint, Our Gang is a political satire written in the form of a closet drama. Centered around the character of "Trick E...
and
The Great American NovelThe Great American Novel is a novel by Philip Roth, published in 1973.-Summary:The novel concerns the Patriot League, a fictional American baseball league, and the national Communist conspiracy to eliminate its history because it has become a fully open communist organization.-Plot:The Port Ruppert...
. Writing about the latter novel, Hermione Lee points to the sense of disillusionment with "the American Dream" in Roth's fiction: "The mythic words on which Roth's generation was brought up — winning, patriotism, gamesmanship — are desanctified; greed, fear, racism, and political ambition are disclosed as the motive forces behind the 'all-American ideals'."
Awards and honors
Two of Roth's works of fiction have won the
National Book AwardThe National Book Awards are a set of American literary awards. Started in 1950, the Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the current year. In 1989 the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization which now oversees and manages the National Book...
; four others were finalists. Two have won
National Book Critics CircleThe National Book Critics Circle is an American tax-exempt organization for active book reviewers. Its flagship is the National Book Critics Circle Award....
awards; again, another five were finalists. He has also won three PEN/Faulkner Awards (Operation Shylock, The Human Stain, and Everyman) and a
Pulitzer PrizeThe Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
for Fiction for his 1997 novel, American Pastoral. In 2001, The Human Stain was awarded the United Kingdom's
WH Smith Literary AwardThe WH Smith Literary Award was an award founded in 1959 by British high street retailer W H Smith. Its founding aim was stated to be to "encourage and bring international esteem to authors of the British Commonwealth"; originally open to all residents of the UK, the Commonwealth and the Republic...
for the best book of the year. In 2002, he was awarded the National Book Foundation's Award for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. Literary critic
Harold BloomHarold Bloom is an American writer and literary critic, and is Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. He is known for his defense of 19th-century Romantic poets, his unique and controversial theories of poetic influence, and his prodigious literary output, particularly for a literary...
has named him as one of the four major American novelists still at work, along with
Thomas PynchonThomas Ruggles Pynchon, Jr. is an American novelist. For his most praised novel, Gravity's Rainbow, Pynchon received the National Book Award, and is regularly cited as a contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature...
,
Don DeLilloDon DeLillo is an American author, playwright, and occasional essayist whose work paints a detailed portrait of American life in the late 20th and early 21st centuries...
, and
Cormac McCarthyCormac McCarthy is an American novelist and playwright. He has written ten novels, spanning the Southern Gothic, Western, and modernist genres. He received the Pulitzer Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction for The Road...
. His 2004 novel
The Plot Against AmericaThe Plot Against America is a novel by Philip Roth published in 2004. It is an alternate history in which Franklin Delano Roosevelt is defeated in the presidential election of 1940 by Charles Lindbergh.-Plot introduction:...
won the
Sidewise Award for Alternate HistoryThe Sidewise Awards for Alternate History were established in 1995 to recognize the best alternate history stories and novels of the year.The awards take their name from the 1934 short story "Sidewise in Time" by Murray Leinster, in which a strange storm causes portions of Earth to swap places with...
in 2005 as well as the Society of American Historians’
James Fenimore Cooper Prize for Best Historical FictionThe James Fenimore Cooper Prize for Best Historical Fiction is a biannual award given by The Society of American Historians. The prize is given "to honor works of literary fiction that significantly advance the historical imagination" . The prize is named for nineteenth century American...
. Roth was also awarded the United Kingdom's
WH Smith Literary AwardThe WH Smith Literary Award was an award founded in 1959 by British high street retailer W H Smith. Its founding aim was stated to be to "encourage and bring international esteem to authors of the British Commonwealth"; originally open to all residents of the UK, the Commonwealth and the Republic...
for the best book of the year, an award Roth has received twice. He was honored in his hometown in October 2005 when then-mayor
Sharpe JamesSharpe James is a Democratic politician and convicted felon from New Jersey, who served as State Senator for the 29th Legislative District and was 35th Mayor of Newark, New Jersey. James was the second African American Mayor of Newark and served five four-year terms before declining to run for...
presided over the unveiling of a street sign in Roth's name on the corner of Summit and Keer Avenues where Roth lived for much of his childhood, a setting prominent in The Plot Against America. A plaque on the house where the Roths lived was also unveiled. In May 2006, he was given the PEN/Nabokov Award, and in 2007 he was awarded the PEN/Faulkner award for Everyman, making him the award's only three-time winner. In April 2007, he was chosen as the recipient of the first
PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American FictionThe PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction is awarded by the PEN American Center "to a distinguished living American author of fiction whose body of work in English possesses qualities of excellence, ambition, and scale of achievement over a sustained career which place him or...
.
The May 21, 2006 issue of
The New York Times Book ReviewThe New York Times Book Review is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to The New York Times in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely read book review publications in the industry. The offices are located near Times Square in New York...
announced the results of a letter that was sent to what the publication described as "a couple of hundred prominent writers, critics, editors and other literary sages, asking them to please identify 'the single best work of American fiction published in the last 25 years.'" Six of Roth's novels were in the 22 selected: American Pastoral, The Counterlife, Operation Shylock, Sabbath's Theater, The Human Stain, and The Plot Against America. The accompanying essay, written by critic A.O. Scott, stated, "If we had asked for the single best writer of fiction of the past 25 years, [Roth] would have won."
In May 2011, Roth was awarded the
Man Booker International PrizeThe Man Booker International Prize is a biennial international literary award given to a living author of any nationality for a body of work published in English or generally available in English translation....
for achievement in fiction on the world stage, the fourth winner of the biennial prize. One of the judges,
Carmen CallilCarmen Thérèse Callil is a publisher, writer and critic. She founded Virago Press in 1973.-Life:Callil was born in Melbourne Australia, but has lived in London since 1960. Her mother Lorraine Clare Allen, widowed in her early forties, raised four children of whom Carmen was the third...
, a publisher of the feminist Virago house, withdrew in protest, referring to Roth's work as '
Emperor's clothes"The Emperor's New Clothes" is a short tale by Hans Christian Andersen about two weavers who promise an Emperor a new suit of clothes that is invisible to those unfit for their positions, stupid, or incompetent...
.' She said "he goes on and on and on about the same subject in almost every single book. It's as though he's sitting on your face and you can't breathe... I don’t rate him as a writer at all ..." Observers quickly noted that Callil had a conflict of interest, having published a book by
Claire BloomClaire Bloom is an English film and stage actress.-Early life:Bloom was born in the North London suburb of Finchley, the daughter of Elizabeth and Edward Max Blume, who worked in sales...
which had criticized Roth. In response, one of the two other Booker judges, Rick Gekoski, remarked: "In 1959 he writes Goodbye, Columbus and it's a masterpiece, magnificent. Fifty-one years later he's 78 years old and he writes Nemesis and it is so wonderful, such a terrific novel ... Tell me one other writer who 50 years apart writes masterpieces ... If you look at the trajectory of the average novel writer, there is a learning period, then a period of high achievement, then the talent runs out and in middle age they start slowly to decline. People say why aren't Martin [Amis] and Julian [Barnes] getting on the Booker prize shortlist, but that's what happens in middle age. Philip Roth, though, gets better and better in middle age. In the 1990s he was almost incapable of not writing a masterpiece – The Human Stain, The Plot Against America, I Married a Communist. He was 65-70 years old, what the hell's he doing writing that well?"
Films
Four of Philip Roth's novels and short stories have been made into films:
Goodbye, ColumbusGoodbye, Columbus is a 1969 American romantic comedy drama film starring Richard Benjamin and Ali MacGraw, directed by Larry Peerce and based on the novella of the same name by Philip Roth...
;
Portnoy's ComplaintPortnoy's Complaint is a 1972 American dramedy film written and directed by Ernest Lehman. His screenplay is based on the bestselling 1969 novel of the same name by Philip Roth.-Plot synopsis:...
;
The Human StainThe Human Stain is a 2003 American romantic thriller film directed by Robert Benton. The screenplay by Nicholas Meyer is based on the 2000 novel of the same name by Philip Roth...
; and
The Dying AnimalThe Dying Animal is a short novel by the US writer Philip Roth. It tells the story of senior literature professor David Kepesh, renowned for his literature-themed radio show. Kepesh is finally destroyed by his inability to comprehend emotional commitment...
which was made into the movie
ElegyElegy is a 2008 drama directed by Spanish director Isabel Coixet and based on a Philip Roth novel, The Dying Animal. Staring Penélope Cruz and Ben Kingsley. The film is set in New York City, but was filmed in Vancouver.-Plot:...
.
Zuckerman novels
- The Ghost Writer
The Ghost Writer is the first novel by Philip Roth to be narrated by Nathan Zuckerman, one of Roth's alter egos, and constitutes the first book in his Zuckerman Bound trilogy. The novel touches on themes common to many Roth works, including identity, the responsibilities of authors to their...
(1979)
- Zuckerman Unbound
-Nathan Zuckerman:The novel resumes the story of Roth's fictional alter ego Nathan Zuckerman that was inaugurated by Roth's previous novel The Ghost Writer.-Themes:...
(1981)
- The Anatomy Lesson (1983)
- The Prague Orgy
The Prague Orgy is a novella by Philip Roth. The short book is the epilogue to his trilogy Zuckerman Bound. The story follows Roth's alter ego Nathan Zuckerman, on a journey to Communist Prague in the 1970s seeking the unpublished manuscript of a martyred Yiddish writer...
(1985)
(The above four books are collected as
Zuckerman BoundZuckerman Bound is a trilogy of novels by Philip Roth, originally published in 1985.-Plot:Each of the books follows the struggles and writing career of Roth's novelist alter ego Nathan Zuckerman.-Contents:The bound trilogy consists of:...
)
- The Counterlife
The Counterlife is a novel by the American author Philip Roth. It is the fourth full novel to feature the fictional novelist Nathan Zuckerman. When The Counterlife was published, Zuckerman had most recently appeared in a novella called The Prague Orgy, the epilogue to the omnibus volume Zuckerman...
(1986)
- American Pastoral
American Pastoral is a Philip Roth novel concerning Seymour "Swede" Levov, a Jewish-American businessman and former high school athlete from Newark, New Jersey. Levov's happy and conventional upper middle class life is ruined by the domestic social and political turmoil of the 1960s, which in the...
(1997)
- I Married a Communist
I Married a Communist is a Philip Roth novel concerning the rise and fall of Ira Ringold, known as "Iron Rinn." The story is narrated by Nathan Zuckerman, and is one of a trio of Zuckerman novels Roth wrote in the 1990s depicting the postwar history of Newark, New Jersey and its residents.Ira and...
(1998)
- The Human Stain
The Human Stain is a novel by Philip Roth. It is set in late 1990s rural New England. Its first person narrator is 65-year-old author Nathan Zuckerman, a character in previous Roth novels, including American Pastoral and I Married a Communist ; these two books form a loose trilogy with The Human...
(2000)
- Exit Ghost
Exit Ghost is a 2007 novel by Philip Roth. It is the ninth, and Roth says his last, novel featuring Nathan Zuckerman.-Plot summary:The plot centers on Zuckerman's return home to New York after eleven years in New England. The purpose of Zuckerman's journey, which he takes the week before the 2004 U.S...
(2007)
Roth novels
- Deception: A Novel
Deception is a 1990 novel by Philip Roth.-Narrator:The novel marks the first time Roth uses his own name as the name of the main protagonist within a fictional work; he had previously used himself as a main character in a work of non-fiction - The Facts: A Novelist's Autobiography, and would do so...
(1990)
- Operation Shylock: A Confession
Operation Shylock: A Confession is novelist Philip Roth's 19th book and was published in 1993.-Summary:The novel follows narrator "Philip Roth" on a journey to Israel, where he attends the trial of accused war criminal John Demjanjuk and becomes involved in an intelligence mission—the "Operation...
(1993)
- The Plot Against America
The Plot Against America is a novel by Philip Roth published in 2004. It is an alternate history in which Franklin Delano Roosevelt is defeated in the presidential election of 1940 by Charles Lindbergh.-Plot introduction:...
(2004)
Kepesh novels
- The Breast
The Breast is a novella by Philip Roth, in which the main character, David Kepesh, becomes a 155-pound breast. Throughout the book Kepesh fights with himself. Part of him wishes to give in to bodily desires, while the other part of him wants to be rational...
(1972)
- The Professor of Desire
The Professor of Desire is a 1977 novel by Philip Roth. It describes the youth, the college years and the academic career of professor David Kepesh, and beside that, his sexual desires.-Plot summary:David is emotionally insecure...
(1977)
- The Dying Animal
The Dying Animal is a short novel by the US writer Philip Roth. It tells the story of senior literature professor David Kepesh, renowned for his literature-themed radio show. Kepesh is finally destroyed by his inability to comprehend emotional commitment...
(2001)
Other novels
- Goodbye, Columbus
Goodbye, Columbus is a 1959 book by American novelist Philip Roth. It was the writer's first book: a collection of five short stories and one novella, also titled "Goodbye, Columbus"....
(1959)
- Letting Go
Letting Go is the first full-length novel written by Philip Roth and is set in the 1950s.- Plot summary:Gabe Wallach is a graduate student in literature at the University of Iowa and an ardent admirer of Henry James. Fearing that the intellectual demands of a life in literature might leave him...
(1962)
- When She Was Good
When She Was Good is Philip Roth's only novel with a female protagonist, Lucy Nelson. It derives its title from a line in a nursery rhyme composed by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:There was a little girlWho had a little curl...
(1967)
- Portnoy's Complaint
Portnoy's Complaint is the American novel that turned its author Philip Roth into a major celebrity, sparking a storm of controversy over its explicit and candid treatment of sexuality, including detailed depictions of masturbation using various props including a piece of liver...
(1969)
- Our Gang
Our Gang is Philip Roth's fifth novel. A marked departure from his previous book, the popular Portnoy's Complaint, Our Gang is a political satire written in the form of a closet drama. Centered around the character of "Trick E...
(1971)
- The Great American Novel
The Great American Novel is a novel by Philip Roth, published in 1973.-Summary:The novel concerns the Patriot League, a fictional American baseball league, and the national Communist conspiracy to eliminate its history because it has become a fully open communist organization.-Plot:The Port Ruppert...
(1973)
- My Life As a Man
My Life As a Man is American writer Philip Roth's seventh novel.-Summary:The work is split into two sections: the first section, "Useful Fictions," consisting of two short stories about a character named Nathan Zuckerman , and the second section,...
(1974)
- Sabbath's Theater
Sabbath's Theater is a novel by Philip Roth about the exploits of 64-year-old Mickey Sabbath. It received the National Book Award for fiction in 1995.-Summary and themes:Mickey Sabbath Sabbath's Theater (1995, ISBN 0-679-77259-6) is a novel by Philip Roth about the exploits of 64-year-old Mickey...
(1995)
Nemeses: Short Novels
- Everyman
Everyman is a novel by Philip Roth, published by Houghton Mifflin in May 2006. The audiobook version is narrated by George Guidall and published by Recorded Books in 2006. It won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction in 2007. It is Roth's third novel to receive the prize.-Plot summary:The book...
(2006)
- Indignation
Indignation is a novel by Philip Roth, released by Houghton Mifflin on September 16, 2008. It is his twenty-ninth book.-Plot:Set in America in 1951, the second year of the Korean War, Indignation is narrated by Marcus Messner, a college student from Newark, New Jersey, who describes his sophomore...
(2008)
- The Humbling
The Humbling is a novel by Philip Roth published in the fall of 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. It is Roth's 30th book and concerns "...an aging stage actor whose empty life is altered by a 'counterplot of unusual erotic desire.'"-Part one:...
(2009)
- Nemesis (2010)
Nonfiction
- The Facts: A Novelist's Autobiography
The Facts: A Novelist's Autobiography is a book by Philip Roth that traces his life from his childhood in Newark, New Jersey to becoming a successful, widely respected novelist...
(1988)
- Patrimony: A True Story
Patrimony: A True Story is a memoir by American writer Philip Roth. It was first published by Simon & Schuster in 1991.-Summary:Roth's memoir recounts the life, decline, and death of his father, Herman Roth, from an inoperable brain tumor.-Composition:"In keeping with the unseemliness of my...
(1991)
Collections
- Reading Myself and Others
Reading Myself and Others is an anthology of essays, interviews and criticism by the author Philip Roth. The first half of the book is built mainly upon Roth's assessment of his own published works at the time of the anthology's publication. The second half of the volume consists of essays and...
(1976)
- A Philip Roth Reader
A Philip Roth Reader is a selection of writings by Philip Roth first published in 1980 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, with a revised version reprinted in 1993 by Vintage Books...
(1980, revised edition 1993)
- Shop Talk
Shop Talk: A Writer and His Colleagues and Their Work is a collection of previously published interviews with important 20th century writers by novelist Philip Roth. Among the writers interviewed are Primo Levi, Aharon Appelfeld, Ivan Klima, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Milan Kundera, and Edna O'Brien...
(2001)
Library of America Editions
Edited by Ross Miller
- Novels and Stories 1959-1962 (2005) ISBN 978-1-93108279-2
- Novels 1967-1972 (2005) ISBN 978-1-93108280-8
- Novels 1973-1977 (2006) ISBN 978-1-93108296-9
- Zuckerman Bound: A Trilogy and Epilogue 1979-1985 (2007) ISBN 978-1-59853-011-7
- Novels and Other Narratives 1986-1991 (2008) ISBN 978-1-59853-030-8
- Novels 1993–1995 (2010) ISBN 978-1-59853-078-0
- The American Trilogy 1997-2000 (2011) ISBN 978-1598531039
List of awards
- 1960 National Book Award
The National Book Awards are a set of American literary awards. Started in 1950, the Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the current year. In 1989 the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization which now oversees and manages the National Book...
for Goodbye, Columbus
- 1975 National Book Award - finalist for My Life As A Man
- 1978 National Book Critics Circle Award - finalist for The Professor Of Desire
- 1980 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction - finalist for The Ghost Writer
- 1980 National Book Award - finalist for The Ghost Writer
- 1980 National Book Critics Circle Award - finalist for The Ghost Writer
- 1984 National Book Award - finalist for The Anatomy Lesson
- 1984 National Book Critics Circle Award - finalist for The Anatomy Lesson
- 1986 National Book Critics Circle Award
The National Book Critics Circle Award is an annual award given by the National Book Critics Circle to promote the finest books and reviews published in English....
for The Counterlife
- 1986 National Book Award - finalist for The Counterlife
- 1991 National Book Critics Circle Award
The National Book Critics Circle Award is an annual award given by the National Book Critics Circle to promote the finest books and reviews published in English....
for Patrimony
- 1994 PEN/Faulkner Award
The PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction is awarded annually by the PEN/Faulkner Foundation to the authors of the year's best works of fiction by living American citizens. The winner receives US $15,000 and each of four runners-up receives US $5000. The foundation brings the winner and runners-up to...
for Operation Shylock
- 1994 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction - finalist for Operation Shylock
- 1995 National Book Award
The National Book Awards are a set of American literary awards. Started in 1950, the Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the current year. In 1989 the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization which now oversees and manages the National Book...
for Sabbath's Theater
- 1994 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction - finalist for Sabbath's Theater
- 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction has been awarded for distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life. It originated as the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel, which was awarded between 1918 and 1947.-1910s:...
for American Pastoral
- 1998 National Book Critics Circle Award - finalist for American Pastoral
- 1998 Ambassador Book Award
The Ambassador Book Award is awarded annually by the English Speaking Union. It recognizes important literary works that contribute to the understanding and interpretation of American life and culture. Winners of the award are considered literary ambassadors who provide, in the best contemporary...
of the English-Speaking UnionThe English-Speaking Union is an international educational charity which was founded by the journalist Evelyn Wrench in 1918. The ESU aims to "bring together and empower people of different languages and cultures," by building skills and confidence in communication, such that individuals realize...
for I Married a Communist
- 1998 National Medal of Arts
The National Medal of Arts is an award and title created by the United States Congress in 1984, for the purpose of honoring artists and patrons of the arts. It is the highest honor conferred to an individual artist on behalf of the people. Honorees are selected by the National Endowment for the...
- 2000 Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger
The Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger is a French literary prize created in 1948. It is awarded yearly in two categories: Novel and Essay for books translated in to French.- Prix du Meilleur livre étranger — Novel :* 2010: Gonçalo M...
(France) for American Pastoral
- 2001 Franz Kafka Prize
The Franz Kafka Prize is an international literary award presented in honour of Franz Kafka, the German language novelist. The prize was first awarded in 2001 and is co-sponsored by the and the city of Prague, Czech Republic. At a presentation held annually at the end of October in the Old Town...
- 2001 PEN/Faulkner Award
The PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction is awarded annually by the PEN/Faulkner Foundation to the authors of the year's best works of fiction by living American citizens. The winner receives US $15,000 and each of four runners-up receives US $5000. The foundation brings the winner and runners-up to...
for The Human Stain
- 2001 Gold Medal In Fiction from The American Academy of Arts and Letters
The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 250-member honor society; its goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art. Located in Washington Heights, a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan in New York, it shares Audubon Terrace, its Beaux Arts campus on...
- 2001 WH Smith Literary Award
The WH Smith Literary Award was an award founded in 1959 by British high street retailer W H Smith. Its founding aim was stated to be to "encourage and bring international esteem to authors of the British Commonwealth"; originally open to all residents of the UK, the Commonwealth and the Republic...
for The Human Stain
- 2002 National Book Foundation
The National Book Foundation, founded in 1989, is an American nonprofit literary organization established "to raise the cultural appreciation of great writing in America." It achieves this through sponsoring the National Book Award, as well as the medal for Distinguished Contribution to American...
's Award for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters
- 2002 Prix Médicis Étranger
The Prix Médicis is a French literary award given each year in November. It was founded in 1958 by Gala Barbisan and Jean-Pierre Giraudoux. It is awarded to an author whose "fame does not yet match his talent."...
(France) for The Human Stain
- 2003 Honorary Doctor of Letters
Doctor of Letters is a university academic degree, often a higher doctorate which is frequently awarded as an honorary degree in recognition of outstanding scholarship or other merits.-Commonwealth:...
degree from Harvard UniversityHarvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
- 2005 National Book Critics Circle Award - finalist for The Plot Against America
- 2005 Sidewise Award for Alternate History
The Sidewise Awards for Alternate History were established in 1995 to recognize the best alternate history stories and novels of the year.The awards take their name from the 1934 short story "Sidewise in Time" by Murray Leinster, in which a strange storm causes portions of Earth to swap places with...
for The Plot Against America
- 2005 James Fenimore Cooper Prize for Best Historical Fiction
The James Fenimore Cooper Prize for Best Historical Fiction is a biannual award given by The Society of American Historians. The prize is given "to honor works of literary fiction that significantly advance the historical imagination" . The prize is named for nineteenth century American...
for The Plot Against America
- 2006 PEN/Nabokov Award
The PEN/Nabokov Award is awarded biannually by the PEN American Center to writers, principally novelists, "whose works evoke to some measure Nabokov's brilliant versatility and commitment to literature as a search for the deepest truth and the highest pleasure— what Nabokov called the...
for lifetime achievement
- 2007 PEN/Faulkner Award
The PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction is awarded annually by the PEN/Faulkner Foundation to the authors of the year's best works of fiction by living American citizens. The winner receives US $15,000 and each of four runners-up receives US $5000. The foundation brings the winner and runners-up to...
for Everyman
- 2007 PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction
The PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction is awarded by the PEN American Center "to a distinguished living American author of fiction whose body of work in English possesses qualities of excellence, ambition, and scale of achievement over a sustained career which place him or...
- 2010 Paris Review's Hadada Prize
- 2011 Man Booker International Prize
The Man Booker International Prize is a biennial international literary award given to a living author of any nationality for a body of work published in English or generally available in English translation....
Further reading and literary criticism
- Bloom, Harold and Welsch, Gabe, eds., Modern Critical Interpretations of Philip Roth's Portnoy's Complaint, Chelsea House, 2003.
- Bloom, Harold, ed., Modern Critical Views of Philip Roth, Chelsea House, New York, 2003.
- Cooper, Alan, Philip Roth and the Jews (SUNY Series in Modern Jewish Literature and Culture), SUNY Press, Albany, NY, 1996.
- „Defender of the faith” by Philip Roth
- Kinzel, Till, Die Tragödie und Komödie des amerikanischen Lebens. Eine Studie zu Zuckermans Amerika in Philip Roths Amerika-Trilogie (American Studies Monograph Series), Heidelberg: Winter, 2006.
- Milowitz, Steven, Philip Roth Considered: The Concentrationary Universe of the American Writer, Routledge, New York, 2000.
- Morley, Catherine, The Quest for Epic in Contemporary American Literature, Routledge, New York, 2008.
- Parrish, Timothy, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Philip Roth, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2007.
- Podhoretz, Norman, "The Adventures of Philip Roth," Commentary (October 1998), reprinted as "Philip Roth, Then and Now" in The Norman Podhoretz Reader, 2004.
- Posnock, Ross, Philip Roth's Rude Truth: The Art of Immaturity, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 2006.
- Royal, Derek Parker, Philip Roth: New Perspectives on an American Author, Praeger Publishers, Santa Barbara, CA, 2005.
- Safer, Elaine B., Mocking the Age: The Later Novels of Philip Roth (SUNY Series in Modern Jewish Literature and Culture), SUNY Press, Albany, NY, 2006.
- Searles, George J., ed., Conversations With Philip Roth, University of Mississippi Press, Jackson, Mississippi, 1992.
- Searles, George J., The Fiction of Philip Roth and John Updike, Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale, Illinois, 1984.
- Shostak, Debra B., Philip Roth: Countertexts, Counterlives, University of South Carolina Press, Columbia, SC, 2004.
- Simic, Charles, "The Nicest Boy in the World," The New York Review of Books, Vol. LV, No. 15, 9 October 2008.
- Wöltje, Wiebke-Maria, My finger on the pulse of the nation. Intellektuelle Protagonisten im Romanwerk Philip Roths (Mosaic, 26), Trier: WVT, 2006.
Informational
Interviews
- Roth interview - from NPR
NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...
's "Fresh AirFresh Air is an American radio talk show broadcast on National Public Radio stations across the United States. The show is produced by WHYY-FM in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Its longtime host is Terry Gross. , the show was syndicated to 450 stations and claimed 4.5 million listeners. The show...
", September 2005
- Roth interview - from The Guardian, December 2005
- Roth interview - from Open Source
- Roth interview - from Der Spiegel, February 2008
- Roth interview - from the London Times, October 17, 2009
- Roth interview - from CBC
CBC Radio generally refers to the English-language radio operations of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The CBC operates a number of radio networks serving different audiences and programming niches, all of which are outlined below.-English:CBC Radio operates three English language...
's Writers and CompanyWriters & Company is a Canadian radio show that airs Sunday afternoons on CBC Radio One. Hosted by Eleanor Wachtel, the program broadcasts interviews with Canadian and international writers....
. Aired 2009-11-01