The Essay: Controversies: American Writing of the 1960s

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The Essay: Controversies: American Writing of the 1960s: Philip Roth

Philip Roth

Controversies: American Writing of the 1960s

BBC Radio 3 - The Essay, Controversies: American Writing of the 1960s, Philip Roth

How Philip Roth's writing alienated him from the Jewish community in America.

A look at authors on the receiving end of cancel culture in 1960s America. In this essay, Philip Roth, who became alienated from American Jews because of his anti-Semitic views.

Michael Goldfarb looks at five authors and their books on the receiving end of cancel culture in liberal America of the 1960s. Each author and the work being discussed was the subject of a controversy that altered their lives and deeply affected their careers.

In this essay, he focuses on Philip Roth. Roth became permanently alienated from American Jews and even his own mother asked him if he was anti-Semitic. In light of his continuous production and the miraculous late flowering of his art, from The Counterlife to The Plot Against America, it's easy to forget that Portnoy’s Complaint, despite its sales, nearly destroyed his career within his own community.  It also coloured how he was seen until his death: as a misogynist who, depending on one's view, had to be forgiven because of his talent, or could not be forgiven, because of his talent. The irony is that while many Jews at the time would like to have had Portnoy's Complaint pulled from bookshops and libraries and pulped, his authorised biography, published in 2021, actually was pulled from sale and pulped because the author, Blake Bailey, was accused of sexual assault.

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Michael Goldfarb looks at five US authors whose books were the subject of controversy.

In this series of essays, Michael Goldfarb looks at five authors who wrote books which were the subject of a controversy that altered their lives and deeply affected their careers.

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