“The
novelist's obsession, moment by moment, is with language: finding the right
next word. “ – Philip Roth
Born on this date in 1933, Roth jumped into a writing career with a bang, his first book, Goodbye, Columbus
and Five Short Stories, winning the National Book Award.
One of America’s most-honored
writers, he has twice received the National Book Award and the National Book
Critics Circle award, and three times the PEN/Faulkner Award. His 1997 novel American Pastoral,
which featured one of his best-known characters Nathan Zuckerman, earned him
the Pulitzer Prize.
Roth's fiction, regularly set in his
native Newark, New Jersey, is known for its intensely autobiographical
character, and for philosophically and formally blurring the distinction
between reality and fiction
“Literature isn't a moral beauty contest,” Roth said. “Its power arises from the authority and
audacity with which the impersonation is pulled off; the belief it inspires is
what counts.” His 29 novels and 4
collections of stories – 8 of which have been adapted for movies – have done
just that.
“It was my great problem to solve:
how to write a book, you know,” he says about his ongoing striving to
achieve. “And after you write one, you
have to write another to prove to yourself you can do it again.”
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