Here are key dates in the life of United States writer Philip Roth, who died Tuesday, May 22, aged 85.
– March 19, 1933: Roth is born in Newark (New Jersey).
– 1959: He publishes a collection of short stories, “Goodbye, Columbus”, that receives the prestigious U.S. National Book Award the following year. He goes on to win a host of literary prizes over his career.
– 1959: Marries Margaret Martinson, whom he divorces four years later. His second marriage is to British actress Claire Bloom (1990-1995).
– 1969: Publishes the sexually explicit “Portnoy’s Complaint”, his first great success.
– 1979: Release of “The Ghost Writer”, the first of a series of novels narrated by his alter ego character, Nathan Zuckerman.
– 1998: Roth is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for “American Pastoral” (1997).
– 2005: Becomes one of the few living writers to have his work published by the Library of America of classic American writing.
– 2010: Release of his last novel, “Nemesis”, about a polio epidemic in 1944.
– 2011: He receives the Man Booker International Prize for lifetime achievement in fiction.
– 2012: Roth announces that he will stop writing fiction. JB
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