Philip Roth was born in Newark, New Jersey and educated at the University of Chicago, where he later taught English. His first book Goodbye Colombus, won the US National Book Prize in 1960 and was made into a successful film. He is probably best known for his third novel Portnoy's Complaint. The Human Stain is the completion of a trilogy which also includes American Pastoral and I Married a Communist. He recently published The Dying Animal. He has twice won the National Book Critics Circle Award, and received the Pulitzer Prize in 1998 for American Pastoral.
The Human Stain is published by Jonathan Cape
