Born in 1933, Philip Roth is an American novelist of huge acclaim. He first came to prominence when he won the 1960 US National Book Award for Fiction for his collection ‘Goodbye, Columbus.’
Following this, his writing continued to receive much recognition for prominent works such as ‘Portnoy’s Complaint’, ‘The Ghost Writer’, ‘The Anatomy Lesson’ and ‘The Counterlife.’
The awards kept coming too; in 1994 he received the PEN/Faulkner Award for ‘Operation Shylock’ and this was followed by the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for ‘American Pastoral.’ He once again won the PEN/Faulkner Award in 2001 for ‘The Human Stain’ and he repeated this in 2007 with ‘Everyman.’
In 1998 he received the National Medal of Arts, while he was honoured with the Gold Medal in Fiction by the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2001.
He also received the inaugural Franz Kafka Prize in 2001 and the 2011 Man Booker International Prize. It seems that only the Nobel Prize for Literature remains!
Philip Roth
Susan will be joined by Dr. Michael Hinds and Professor Ross Posnock to discuss the career of Philip Roth.
Michael is Head of the English Department in the Mater Dei Institute of Education, having previously taught at Trinity College Dublin, University College Dublin and in the University of Tokyo.
Ross is the Anna Garbedian Professor of the Humanities in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York City. He is the series editor of ‘Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture’ and in 2009 was elected to the American Academy of Arts.
Join Susan, Michael and Ross as they discuss the work of this famed American novelist.
How rough a writer is Roth? Is it fair to compare him with greats of American literature? And why has he yet to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature?
Herman Koch
He began his career as an actor, performing in radio, television and film in the 1980s and 1990s. During this time he also wrote many short stories and novels. He reached international audiences with his sixth novel ‘The Dinner’, which sold over one million copies across Europe and became a New York Times bestseller. The success of this book led to it being adapted to both the stage and the screen in his home country.
This offering was followed by ‘Summer House with Swimming Pool.’ This was released internationally in 2014 and was met with much acclaim too. Once again, this novel showcases Koch’s thought provoking style, as his fiction enters the dark aspects of human psychology.
Why does Herman broach the uncomfortable moral questions in his work? Is there good and bad in everyone? And how is he dealing with becoming one of the most successful Dutch writers working today?
Listen in to this week’s ‘Talking Books’ as Susan puts these questions and ideas to Herman.
