Philip Roth

A Counterlife

Philip Roth
Ira Nadel
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NZ$ 58.99
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NZ$ 47.19
Hardback
h235 x 156mm - 568pg
1 May 2021 US
9780199846108
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This new biography of famed American novelist Philip Roth offers a full account of his development as a writer. Philip Roth was much more than a Jewish writer from Newark, as this new biography reveals. His life encompassed writing some of the most original novels in American literature, publishing censored writers from Eastern Europe, surviving less than satisfactory marriages, and developing friendships with a number of themost important writers of his time from Primo Levi and Milan Kundera to Isaac Bashevis Singer, Saul Bellow and Edna O' Brien. The winner of a Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, and the Man Booker International Prize,Roth maintained a remarkable productivity throughout a career that spanned almost fifty years, creating 31 works. But beneath the success was illness, angst, and anxiety often masked from his readers. This biography, drawing on archives, interviews and his books, delves into the shaded world of Philip Roth to identify the ghosts, the character, and even identity of the man.
"In Philip Roth: A Counterlife, Ira Nadel exposes the multifaceted disposition of this major voice in American letters: Roth the realist, the ironist, the ventriloquist, the impersonator, the bard. In navigating the intricacies and dualities of the public and private Roth, Nadel shows the complexities, the contradictions, and the counterlives both lived and imagined. As literary sleuth, Nadel has enriched the myriad possibilities for understanding thisexacting and defiant writer and his work. " -- Victoria Aarons, O. R. & Eva Mitchell Distinguished Professor of Literature, Department of English, Trinity University"Professor Nadel' s study is always very readable and compelling but its discussion of material that has never been accessed before is particularly exciting. " -- David Brauner, Professor of Contemporary Literature, The University of Reading"Philip Roth: A Counterlife engages and illuminates the scenes of discontent, betrayal, illness, and rage in Roth' s own life that allow for new understandings of his work and relationships. Drawing on such primary source material as interviews, personal correspondence, and site visits, Nadel' s biography penetrates the carefully composed narrative Roth presented publicly in order to present a "counter" Philip Roth, one who is at once more sympathetic tohis readers than critics realize and more dynamic than even his self-creation allows. Nadel seamlessly weaves his interpretations of Roth' s most provocative texts into the story of Roth' s own life: a lifeshadowed by pain, illness, and personal injustices, but also illuminated by the joys of writing, ideas, and friendships that will persist long after his death. " -- Aimee Pozorski, Co-executive editor of Philip Roth Studies, Professor of English, Central Connecticut State University"An admiring and well-researched yet selective account of a great writer' s career. "--Kirkus"An unrestrained portrait of an irascible figure, Nadel' s account is an enlightening addition to the understanding of a major American writer. "--Publishers Weekly"An intense and illuminating study of the life, times, and work of the Jewish man from Newark who became one of America' s most original and provocative writers. . . Nadel brings meticulous research, attention to detail, and extensive knowledge of Roth' s work to his incisive and intimate portrait of the man. . . The book casts light on the stunning degree to which his work blurs the lines between truth and fiction. "--Foreword Reviews, Starred Review
Ira Nadel is Professor of English at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver and is the author of biographies of Leonard Cohen, Tom Stoppard, David Mamet and Leon Uris. He has also published Biography: Fiction Fact & Form, Joyce and the Jews and Modernism' s Second Act, in addition to a Critical Companion to Philip Roth.
Status: Active
ISBN-13: 9780199846108
Published: 1 May 2021
Published In: United States
Imprint: Oxford University Press
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Format: Hardback
Height: 235mm
Width: 156mm
Pages: 568

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