Philip Roth, one of America’s most prolific and controversial novelists, was on Tuesday named winner of the £60,000 Man Booker International Prize awarded every two years for a body of work published either originally in English or widely available in English translation.
He beat a formidable line-up of 12 contenders that included Rohinton Mistry and John Le Carre.
Roth (78) is best-known for his 1969 novel "Portnoy's Complaint", and for his late-1990s trilogy comprising "American Pastoral" which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1998; "I Married a Communist" ; and "The Human Stain’’.
Judges praised him for his "imagination" and, especially, the way he had dealt with the notion of Jewish identity in his novels.
"His imagination has not only recast our idea of Jewish identity, it has also reanimated fiction, and not just American fiction, generally," said the Chair of the judging panel, Rick Gekoski, well-known American writer and broadcaster.
Describing Roth’s career as an "astonishing achievement", he said: "His career is remarkable in that he starts at such a high level, and keeps getting better. In his 50s and 60s, when most novelists are in decline, he wrote a string of novels of the highest, enduring quality. Indeed, his most recent, Nemesis (2010), is as fresh, memorable, and alive with feeling as anything he has written. His is an astonishing achievement."
In a brief statement, Roth said he hoped the award would bring is work to the attention of those who were not familiar with it.
"One of the particular pleasures I've had as a writer is to have my work read internationally despite all the heartaches of translation that that entails. I hope the prize will bring me to the attention of readers around the world who are not familiar with my work. This is a great honour and I'm delighted to receive it," he said.
Previous winners include Ismail Kadaré, Chinua Achebe and Alice Munro.
