May 24, 2018 By: rolen
L-R. Pietro Di Donato, Ralph Ellison, David Fleisher, Philip Roth
According to the obituary for Philip Roth in the New York Times of May 23, 2018, Roth鈥檚 participation in the Symposium was instrumental in his development as an author:
In 1962, while appearing on a panel at 糖心破解版, Mr. Roth was so denounced, for that story [鈥淒efender of the Faith鈥漖 especially, that he resolved never to write about Jews again. He quickly changed his mind. 鈥淢y humiliation before the Yeshiva belligerents 鈥 indeed, the angry Jewish resistance that I aroused virtually from the start 鈥 was the luckiest break I could have had,鈥 he later wrote. 鈥淚 was branded.鈥Indeed, the canonical edition of Roth鈥檚 works, The Library of America, divides his early writings into: 鈥淣ovels & Stories 1959-1962鈥 (volume 1), and 鈥淣ovels 1967-1972鈥 (volume 2), perhaps indicative of the influence of the discussions at Yeshiva in 1962 in Roth鈥檚 literary career.
Philip Roth at the podium