Philip Roth

Announced today: American author Philip Roth is the winner of the 2011 Man Book International Prize.

The international prize is different from the normal Booker in that it recognizes a writer's oeuvre,¹ rather than an individual novel. A relatively new award, the international prize is awarded every two years. The previous winners are Chinua Achebe (2007), Ismail Kadare (2005), and Alice Munro (2009).

I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that I haven't read much Roth. Of his more recent novels, I've only read The Plot Against America, which I loved.² Nemesis is on my list as a must-read for both me and my mom.

The other contenders for this year's prize:

• Wang Anyi
• Juan Goytisolo
• James Kelman
• John le Carré, who withdrew
• Amin Maalouf
• David Malouf
• Dacia Maraini
• Rohinton Mistry
• Philip Pullman
• Marilynne Robinson
• Su Tong
• Anne Tyler

I'm unfamiliar with a few of these authors, which is something that needs to be rectified.

Image (c) Nancy Crampton

1. oeuvre: the lifework of a writer, artist, or composer. We get this lovely word from the French; it descended from the Latin opus.
2. I actually wrote a paper for an early American literature class comparing The Plot Against America to Hope Leslie by Catharine Sedgwick. Another aside. I ended up in this class because one on literature of the diaspora had been canceled and I was bound and determined to take something after all the hoops the department made me go through in order to register for a graduate-level course as a faculty member (seriously it was like applying to a PhD program; I even had to get letters from former professors and submit a writing sample).