Philip Roth

Philip Roth, an American author of Jewish descent, was born on March 19, 1933, in Newark, New Jersey. He studied English literature at Bucknell University and the University of Chicago. Roth served as a professor of comparative literature at Princeton University, Hunter College in New York, and the University of Pennsylvania. He directed the "Writers from the Other Europe" series for Penguin Books, introducing American audiences to authors like Bruno Schulz and Milan Kundera. A prolific writer, Roth authored a total of 31 books. He gained widespread recognition with his collection of short stories, "Goodbye, Columbus," in 1959, which was awarded the National Book Award for Fiction. Among his numerous accolades are the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1987 for the novel "The Counterlife," the same award in 1991 for the autobiographical narrative "Patrimony," the PEN/Faulkner Award in 1994 for the novel "Operation Shylock," the National Book Award in 1995 for "Sabbath's Theater," the Pulitzer Prize in 1997 for "American Pastoral," the PEN/Faulkner Award in 2001 for "The Human Stain" (which was adapted into a film), and the PEN/Faulkner Award in 2007 for "Everyman." He was also awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1998, the Gold Medal for Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2001, and two of the most prestigious PEN awards for his body of work: the PEN/Nabokov Award in 2006 and the PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction in 2007. In 2011, he was honored with the Man Booker International Prize for his lifetime achievement. Roth was the only American author to have his complete works published in a comprehensive and definitive edition by the Library of America while he was still alive. In 2012, he announced to the magazine "Les Inrockuptibles" that, after rereading all his works, he decided to retire from writing fiction (his last novel being "Nemesis," published in English in 2010). He passed away in New York on May 22, 2018, from heart failure, at the age of 85.