Philip Roth wins Man Booker International Prize, sparks controversy

Author Philip Roth won the Man Booker International Prize on Wednesday, but not everyone involved in the process was happy about it. The Man Booker International, which is awarded every other year to a writer for his or her overall contribution to the world of fiction, comes with a prize worth about $97,000. 

Roth has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize (for "American Pastoral"), has won two National Book Awards (for "Goodbye, Columbus" and "Sabbath's Theater") and two National Book Critics Circle Awards (for "The Counterlife" and "Patrimony"). He's also received the National Medal of Arts and, in March of this year, the National Medal of the Humanities. Clearly, he's found traction with American prize juries.

Not so in Britain. Man Booker International judge Carmen Callil, an author and founder of the feminist publishing house Virago, very publicly withdrew from the panel in protest of the decision to honor Roth. She told the Guardian, "He goes on and on and on about the same subject in almost every single book. It's as though he's sitting on your face and you can't breathe."

She continued, "I don't rate him as a writer at all. I made it clear that I wouldn't have put him on the longlist, so I was amazed when he stayed there. He was the only one I didn't admire -– all the others were fine."

Callil, who will explain why she believes Roth is not a worthy winner in an outspoken column in the Guardian Review on Saturday, also said that "Roth goes to the core of their [the other judges'] beings. But he certainly doesn't go to the core of mine ... Emperor's clothes: in 20 years' time will anyone read him?"

In March, the jury announced 13 finalists they were considering for the award. In addition to Roth, British authors John le Carré, John Kelman and Philip Pullman; American authors Anne Tyler and Marilynne Robinson; Wang Anyi and Su Tong from China; Juan Goytisolo from Spain; Amin Maalouf from Lebanon, Rohinton Mistry from India and Canada; and Italy's Dacia Maraini were under consideration for the prize. In her upcoming Guardian column, Callil regrets that the award has gone to "yet another North American writer."

Head judge Rick Gekoski told the New York Times, "I am very regretful that she would go public in this way because I think it's disrespectful to the winner." He described Roth as "a novelist through and through."

Despite Calill's public objections, Roth joins the short list of Man Booker International Prize recipients. There have been just three others: Albanian author Ismail Kadaré, who won in 2005; Nigerian Chinua Achebe, who won in 2007; and Canadian Alice Munro, who won in 2009.

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-- Carolyn Kellogg

Photo: Philip Roth in 2010. Credit: Nancy Crampton / Handou

Comments

[jackwells]

" "He goes on and on and on about the same subject in almost every single book. It's as though he's sitting on your face and you can't breathe."

Bravo, someone finally had the courage to say it.

[Anotherwhiner]

Clearly, U.S. reviewers have been undeservedly kind to Mr. Roth.

[jleeee]

Anne Tyler is on that list and she complains about Roth doing the same thing over and over again?

[Kurt Sipolski]

I had a hard time getting into his last book...thought it was just me.

[Tony M]

Carmen Callil's comments make me wonder if she has actually read him or just accepted some feminist assumptions about him. Really, he goes on and on about the same subject? What subject is that? Ethnic and racial identity, sexuality, social class, the meaning of fiction itself. Read American Pastoral - if that is going on and on about the same subject, then let's have more of that please. Read The Counterlife - about the only meta-fiction that will be read decades from now. Heck, even read a comparatively minor work like Indignation and try to understand how much of it is actually comic at the expense of the hero's sexual hang ups.

Really, Jacket Copy, this "controversy" is ridiculous.

[Yojimbo Slice]

This Callil doesn't sound terribly thoughtful..

[Daniel Adleman]

How on earth did Calill become a judge of literary merit? Her polemics against Roth are unbelievably obtuse and vitriolic. In books like American Pastoral and Patrimony, Roth displays unparalleled erudition. Who'll be reading Roth in 20 years? The real question is who'll remember Calill in 5? Nobody.

[Janet R]

I slogged through American Pastoral. Way overrated. (A Pulitzer??)

These types of awards are largely about politics and connections.

[EvanP]

Not a huge fan of Roth's writing. He's incredibly skilled, but it just doesn't reach me on anything but a surface level. But whatever, I get why he wins a lot of awards. My real problem with this, though, is that there's no real point to giving Roth an award. I'd feel the same way if Marilynne Robinson won, and I love her work.

There are tons and tons of great writers out there with amazing bodies of work who aren't that well-known outside of their own countries, but instead they award an author who is so in the spotlight he might as well live there.

I mean, did this award achieve anything other than buying Roth a new boat? Was there any purpose to the process or the money? Or could they just have released a statement saying, "Yeah Pulitzer and NBA panelists, you guys are totally right. He's really good."?

[MariaB]

Couldn't agree more with the comment of EvanP -- and while we're on the subject of under-recognized writers, the short list for the prize includes JAMES Kelman, not "John." He's one of the greatest writers working today. Please get his name right.