Philip Roth: ‘I’m done’ writing books
US President Barack Obama presents the 2010 National Humanities Medal to novelist Philip Roth during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on March 2, 2011.
American writer Philip Roth has given up writing books, his publisher, Houghton Mifflin, confirmed today, according to Reuters. Roth, 79, is the author of more than 25 novels, including “Goodbye, Columbus,” “Portnoy’s Complaint” and the Pulitzer Prize-winning “American Pastoral.”
Last month, Roth told French magazine Les InRocks that his 2010 novel “Nemesis” would be his last book, Salon reported.
In the interview, Roth revealed he had spent the past few years rereading his favorite books and all his own work, Salon reported. “I wanted to see if I had wasted my time writing,” he said, according to Salon’s English translation of the interview. “And I thought it was rather successful.” He added : “And after that, I decided that I was done with fiction.”
“To tell you the truth, I’m done,” Roth said, according to Salon. “I have dedicated my life to the novel: I studied, I taught, I wrote and I read. With the exclusion of almost everything else. Enough is enough! I no longer feel this fanaticism to write that I have experienced in my life.”
"He told me it was true," Lori Glazer, Houghton Mifflin's vice president and executive director of publicity, said today, Reuters reported.
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