US writer Philip Roth, author of 'Portnoy's Complaint,' dies at 85






Washington (dpa) - Philip Roth, considered to be one of America's greatest modern writers, died Tuesday aged 85, according to US media reports.



 
The death of the author of more than 30 novels was reported by the New Yorker and the New York Times which both cited friends close to Roth.
Roth's biographer Blake Bailey also confirmed his death on Twitter, saying the writer died "surrounded by lifelong friends who loved him deeply."
Roth was born on March 19, 1933 in Newark, New Jersey and earned a
bachelor's degree in English from Bucknell University and a master's
in English literature from the University of Chicago.
He began writing short stories for the Paris Review, Esquire,
The New Yorker and other magazines while teaching at the University
of Chicago and spent years teaching at the University of
Pennsylvania.
His early acclaim was mixed with controversy with his third novel
Portnoy's Complaint (1969), in which Roth described a compulsive masturbator with an overbearing Jewish mother. Roth always denied that the novel was autobiographical.
In much of his later work, Roth created literary alter-egos, or gave the central characters his own name and many similar characteristics.
He won a Pulitzer Prize for his 1997 novel "American Pastoral," but although he was often cited as a potential recipient, the Nobel Prize for Literature eluded him.
Roth is considered to be one of the greatest American modern authors, often mentioned alongside Saul Bellow, John Updike, Norman Mailer and Gore Vid

Wednesday, May 23rd 2018
(dpa)
           


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