Philip Roth announces his retirement
Philip Roth says his novel 'Nemesis,' which was released in 2010, was his last book.
Philip Roth won the Pulitzer Prize and received the National Book Award twice during his career.
Richard Drew/AP
Say it ain鈥檛 so!
Philip Roth, Pulitzer Prize winner, two-time National Book Award winner and novelist extraordinaire, says he will retire from writing.
The 78-year-old novelist announced his retirement quietly, in an interview with a French magazine that does not appear to have been reported in the US.
鈥淭o tell you the truth, I鈥檓 done,鈥� Roth told last month. 鈥溾�橬emesis鈥� will be my last book.鈥�
(The actual interview was published in French and quoted Roth鈥檚 words as 鈥�Pour tout vous avouer, j鈥檈n ai fini. N茅m茅sis sera mon dernier livre.鈥�)
contacted Roth鈥檚 American publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, to confirm his retirement. 鈥淗e said it was true,鈥� Lori Glazer, vice president and executive director of publicity, told Salon. 聽
A seminal American novelist whose novels explored Jewish-American life, Roth produced a number of exemplary works of twentieth-century American fiction, including 鈥淕oodbye, Columbus,鈥� 鈥淧ortnoy鈥檚 Complaint,鈥� the collection 鈥淶uckerman Bound,鈥� and 鈥淭he Human Stain.鈥�
Roth told interviewer Nelly Kaprielian that at age 74, he realized he didn鈥檛 have much time left and began revisiting his favorite literature. He re-read his favorite novelists like Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Conrad, and Hemingway. Then he revisited his own books in reverse chronological order before writing his final work, 鈥淣emesis,鈥� in 2010. 聽
鈥淚 wanted to see if I had wasted my time writing,鈥� he said. 鈥淎nd I thought it was rather successful. At the end of his life, the boxer Joe Louis said, 鈥業 did the best I could with what I had.鈥� This is exactly what I would say of my work: I did the best I could with what I had.
鈥淎nd after that, I decided that I was done with fiction.聽I do not want to read, to write more,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 have dedicated my life to the novel: I studied, I taught, I wrote and I read.聽With the exclusion of almost everything else.聽Enough is enough!聽I no longer feel this fanaticism to write that I have experienced in my life.鈥�
Husna Haq is a Monitor correspondent.