Philip Roth: Why Write? Collected Nonfiction 1960-2014 by Philip Roth

Philip Roth: Why Write? Collected Nonfiction 1960-2014 by Philip Roth

America's most celebrated writer returns with a definitive edition of his essential statements on literature, his controversial novels, and the writing life, includingincluding six pieces published here for the first time and many others newly revised.

Throughout a unparalleled literary career that includes two National Book Awards (Goodbye, Columbus, 1959 and Sabbath's Theater, 1995), the Pulitzer Prize in fiction (American Pastoral, 1997), the National Book Critics Circle Award (The Counterlife, 1986), and the National Humanities Medal (awarded by President Obama in 2011), among many other honors, Philip Roth has produced an extraordinary body of nonfiction writing on a wide range of topics- his own work and that of the writers he admires, the creative process, and the state of American culture. This work is collected for the first time in Why Write?, the tenth and final volume in the Library of America'sdefinitive Philip Roth edition. Here is Roth's selection of the indispensable core of Reading Myself and Others,the entirety of the 2001 book Shop Talk, and "Explanations," a collection of fourteen later pieces brought together here for the first time, six never before published. Among the essays gathered are "My Uchronia," an account of the genesis of The Plot Against America, a novel grounded in the insight that "all the assurances are provisional, even here in a two-hundred-year-old democracy"; "Errata," the unabridged version of the "Open Letter to Wikipedia" published on The New Yorker's website in 2012 to counter the online encyclopedia's egregious errors about his life and work; and "The Ruthless Intimacy of Fiction," a speech delivered on the occasion ofhis eightieth birthday that celebrates the "refractory way of living" of Sabbath's Theater's Mickey Sabbath. Alsoincluded are two lengthy interviews given after Roth's retirement, which take stock of a lifetime of work.

LIBRARY OF AMERICAis an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation's literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America's best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.

In 1997, PHILIP ROTH (1933-2018) was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for American Pastoral. In 1998, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Bill Clinton, and in 2002, he was given the Gold Medal in Fiction by the American Academy of Arts and Letters, which had previously been given to John Dos Passos, William Faulkner, and Saul Bellow, among others. He was the recipient of the National Book Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award on two occasions. The Conspiracy Against America won the Society of American Historians' prize for the best historical book on an American theme in 2003-2004, as well as the W.H. Auden Award. In 2005, Roth became the third living American writer to have his works published in a full, definitive edition by the Library of America, making him the first writer to win the prize twice in the prize's forty-six-year history.

In 2011, he was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Barack Obama, and he went on to win the Man Booker International Award for the fourth time. In 2012, he earned Spain's highest accolade, the Prince of Asturias Award, and in 2013, he was named Commander of the Legion of Honor, France's highest decoration.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781598535402
ISBN 10	1598535404
Title	Philip Roth: Why Write? Collected Nonfiction 1960-2014
Author	Philip Roth
Series	Library Of America Philip Roth Edition Ser
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	The Library of America
Year published	2017-09-12
Number of pages	476
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.