Pulitzer winning novelist Philip Roth dies

New York, May 23: Philip Roth, a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and uncompromising realist who wrote about male sexuality, Jewish life and America in books like “Godbye Columbus”, has died at a hospital here. He was 85. Roth died on Tuesday night of congestive heart failure surrounded by close friends and family, CNN quoted Judith Thurman, a close friend, as saying. Roth was one of America’s most prolific 20th century novelists, with a career that included more than two dozen books and short stories. He was born in Newark on March 19, 1933, the younger of two sons. His father, Herman, was an insurance manager for Metropolitan Life and his mother, Bess Finkel, was a secretary before she married, reports The New York Times. Roth graduated from Bucknell in 1954 and won a scholarship to the University of Chicago, where he was awarded an M.A. in 1955. That same year, he enlisted in the Army but suffered a back injury. In 1956, Roth returned to Chicago to study for a Ph.D. in English but dropped out soon after. (IANS)