Philip Roth, a prize-winning novelist and fearless narrator of sex, death, assimilation and fate, has died.
The celebrated and controversial author of “Portnoy’s Complaint,” ”The Counterlife” and other novels was 85. His death was confirmed by his literary agent, Andrew Wylie, who said Roth died Tuesday night of congestive heart failure.
Roth won virtually every literary honor, including the Pulitzer Prize for “American Pastoral.”
Author of more than 25 books, Roth was a fierce satirist and uncompromising realist, confronting readers in a bold, direct style that scorned false sentiment or hopes for heavenly reward.
He was among the greatest writers never to win the Nobel Prize. But he received virtually every other literary honor, including two National Book Awards, two National Book Critics Circle prizes and, in 1998, the Pulitzer for “American Pastoral.” He was in his 20s when he won his first award and awed critics and fellow writers by producing some of his most acclaimed novels in his 60s and 70s, including “The Human Stain” and “Sabbath’s Theater,” a savage narrative of lust and mortality he considered his finest work.
SOURCE: AP
Ben O'Hara
