Henry Roth author page

Henry Roth biography

Henry Roth (8 February 1906–13 October 1995) was an American novelist and short-story writer. Born in Tysmenica, Galicia, then part of Austria-Hungary (now Tysmenytsia, Ukraine), he emigrated to the United States as a child and grew up in New York City. His experiences in the Lower East Side and Harlem informed his first novel, Call It Sleep (1934), a portrait of a Jewish immigrant boy in early-twentieth-century New York.

Call It Sleep received respectful notices on publication but soon went out of print. A paperback reissue in 1964 led to widespread recognition and strong sales, establishing the book as a key work of twentieth-century American fiction.

Roth published sporadically thereafter. His collection Shifting Landscape: A Composite, 1925–1987 appeared in 1987. In his eighties he returned to long fiction with the multi-volume cycle Mercy of a Rude Stream, an autobiographical sequence following the writer-protagonist Ira Stigman from childhood into early adulthood. The first two volumes, A Star Shines Over Mt. Morris Park (1994) and A Diving Rock on the Hudson (1995), were published during his lifetime; From Bondage (1996) and Requiem for Harlem (1998) followed posthumously.

Roth’s work is noted for its detailed rendering of immigrant speech and city life, its psychological acuity, and its weaving of memory with fiction. He died in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1995.

Most recent dated milestone: final volume of Mercy of a Rude Stream, Requiem for Harlem, published 1998.