Philip Roth Named Winner of First Saul Bellow Award

Philip Roth has been named the winner of the first ever PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction, “a $40,000 prize named for the late Nobel laureate and one of Roth’s closest friends and literary heroes,” says AP.

The new award was created in cooperation with the Bellow estate and was made possible by a grant from author and philanthropist Evelyn Stefansson Nef. The PEN/Saul Bellow Award will be awarded every two years.

Roth might well be one of the most awarded authors of his generation. He has received the PEN/Faulkner Award three times (for Operation Shylock, The Human Stain and Everyman) and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (for American Pastoral).

Fans of this prolific author don’t have long to wait for a new novel. Exit Ghost is expected in October of this year. Answers.com says that the book will be the last one to feature the Nathan Zuckerman character.

You can read the AP item here.