Shop Talk
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 First edition | |
| Author | Philip Roth |
|---|---|
| Subject | Writing |
| Publisher | Houghton Mifflin |
Publication date | September 25, 2001 |
| Pages | 160 |
| ISBN | 0-618-15314-4 |
| OCLC | 46683862 |
| 809/.045 21 | |
| LC Class | PN452 .R68 2001 |
Shop Talk: A Writer and His Colleagues and Their Work is a collection of previously published interviews with important 20th-century writers by novelist Philip Roth. Among the writers interviewed are Primo Levi, Aharon Appelfeld, Ivan Klima, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Milan Kundera, and Edna O'Brien. In addition, the book contains a discussion with Mary McCarthy about Roth's novel The Counterlife and a New Yorker essay on Saul Bellow. Roth's trip to Israel to interview Appelfeld inspired his novel Operation Shylock.
Table of contents
[edit]- Conversation in New York with Isaac Bashevis Singer about Bruno Schulz, from The New York Times Book Review, 1976
- Conversation in London and Connecticut with Milan Kundera, from The New York Times Book Review, 1980
- Conversation in London with Edna O'Brien, from The New York Times Book Review, 1984
- Pictures of Malamud, from The New York Times Book Review, 1986
- A Man Saved by His Skills. Conversation in Turin with Primo Levi, from The New York Times Book Review, 12 ottobre 1986
- Conversation in Jerusalem with Aharon Appelfeld, from The New York Times Book Review, 1988
- Pictures of Guston, from Vanity Fair, 1989
- Conversation in Prague with Ivan Klíma, from The New York Review of Books, 1990
- An Exchange with Mary McCarthy, from The New Yorker, 1998
- Rereading Saul Bellow, from The New Yorker, 2000
Reception
[edit]Author Daniel Handler, reviewing the book in the San Francisco Chronicle, called it "hodgepodge", with conversations that "fall flat" and were sometimes " vague and unsatisfying".[1] On the other hand, Nicholas Lezard, in The Guardian, found that "Roth asks all the right questions", with the answers being "consistently enlightening".[2]
References
[edit]- ^ Handler, Daniel (7 October 2001). "Philip Roth — underrated?". San Francisco Chronicle. p. R3. Retrieved 21 February 2026 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ Lezard, Nicholas (14 September 2002). "One Writer's genius at getting others to talk". Review. The Guardian. London. p. 30. Retrieved 21 February 2026 – via Newspapers.com.
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