Philip Roth wins literary prize
AMERICAN novelist Philip Roth has won the £60,000 ($A91,000) Man Booker International Prize, beating 12 other finalists for the British literary award.
The prize, awarded every two years to recognise a living author’s achievement in fiction and literary excellence, was announced during the Sydney Writers’ Festival.
Rick Gekoski, who chaired the judging panel, said: “For more than 50 years Philip Roth’s books have stimulated, provoked and amused an enormous, and still expanding, audience.
“His imagination has not only recast our idea of Jewish identity, it has reanimated fiction, and not just American fiction, generally.”
However, one of the three judges, Australian author Carmen Callil, withdrew from the judging panel in protest over the decision.
“I don’t rate him as a writer at all,” she reportedly said.
Born in 1933 in New Jersey, achieved notoriety in 1969 with his bestselling Portnoy’s Complaint. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1998 for American Pastoral.
In a statement, Roth thanked the judges for awarding “this esteemed prize” to him.
“I hope the prize will bring me to the attention of readers around the world who are not familiar with my work.”
PHOTO: Author Philip Roth
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