Seminal American author Philip Roth dies

1933: Born in Newark, New Jersey, to middle class, first-generation Jewish immigrants from Europe

1954-56: Receives undergraduate degree at Bucknell University and Master’s in English Literature at University of Chicago

1959: First achieves fame with Goodbye, Columbus – satire of religion and class in post-World War Two America for which he wins first of two National Book Awards

1969: Achieves fame with sexually explicit, best-selling novel Portnoy’s Complaint

1979: The Ghost Writer introduces Roth’s fictional alter ego Nathan Zuckerman

1997: Wins Pulitzer Prize for acclaimed novel American Pastoral about middle-class couple whose daughter becomes a terrorist

1998: Publishes I Married a Communist set in McCarthyite communist-hunting era of 1950s and reputedly prompted by Roth’s failed marriage to English actor Claire Bloom

2000: Completes second Zuckerman trilogy with The Human Stain, focused on identity politics in 1990s America and released in 2003 as movie starring Anthony Hopkins and Nicole Kidman

2006: Becomes first three-time winner of PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction with Everyman, which marks start of period during which Roth produces novels dwelling on
issues of mortality

2010: Receives National Humanities Medal from U.S. President Barack Obama
    
2011: Awarded Man Booker International Prize for lifetime achievement. Announces retirement from writing one year later

May 23, 2018: Dies of heart failure in New York, aged 85


Sources: Encyclopaedia Britannica, AP Picture: Associated Press © GRAPHIC NEWS