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Friday, Nov 9, 2012 9:15 PM UTC

Philip Roth says he’s done with fiction

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Topics: From the Wires,

NEW YORK (AP) — Exit, Philip Roth? Having conceived everything from turning into a breast to a polio epidemic in his native New Jersey, Roth has apparently given his imagination a rest.

The 79-year-old novelist recently told a French publication, Les inRocks, that his 2010 release “Nemesis” would be his last. A spokeswoman for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt said Friday that she spoke with Roth and that he confirmed his remarks. Roth’s literary agent, Andrew Wylie, declined comment.

Roth certainly worked hard, completing more than 20 novels over half a century and often turning out one a year. He won virtually every prize short of the Nobel and wrote such classics as “American Pastoral” and “Portnoy’s Complaint.” His parting words from “Nemesis”: “He seemed to us invincible.”

More Hillel Italie.

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