Podcast: Celebrating Philip Roth #1: Claudia Pierpont, Nathan Englander and Scott Raab

by David Varno | May-10-2011

The National Book Critics Circle collaborated with the Center for Fiction in a Celebration of Philip Roth this spring (Roth is in the front row in the photo at left, with Ben Taylor to his right). Roth is one of the NBCC's most honored authors; he received the NBCC fiction award in 1987 for The Counterlife, and the NBCC autobiography award in 1991 for Patrimony: A True Story. He was an NBCC fiction finalist in 1977 for The Professor of Desire, in 1979 for The Ghost Writer, in 1983 for The Anatomy Lesson, in 1997 for American Pastoral, and in 2004 for The Plot Against America.

The event began with a conversation about Roth's work moderated by New Yorker staff writer Claudia Roth Pierpont (author of the NBCC finalist Passionate Minds: Women Rewriting the World) (above, right), with Nathan Englander (For the Relief of Unbearable Urges and The Ministry of Special Cases) (above, left), and Scott Raab, Writer at Large for Esquire and author of Real Hollywood Stories. The evening opened with a welcome by Noreen Tomassi, Executive Director for the Center for Fiction. 

Critical Mass postings this week will include a range of Philip Roth reviews, his acceptance speech when he won the NBCC fiction award for The Counterlife in 1988, and a 50-minute video of Roth reading from his NBCC-award winning autobiography, Patrimony.

Photo by Blaine Morris