Roth,Henry

Abstract

Henry Roth was a pioneering figure in American Jewish literature. Despite initial neglect, his first novel, Call it Sleep (1934), was eventually recognized as a classic of immigrant fiction, a brilliant adaptation of Joycean and Freudian techniques to American urban experience, and a harbinger of the flowering of American Jewish culture after World War II. After a legendary hiatus of several decades, Roth recovered his literary ambitions, producing in the final decade of his long life a massive cycle of autobiographical fiction. Two volumes were carved out of it and published before his death at the age of 89, two appeared posthumously, and approximately 1,000 manuscript pages remained unpublished.