General | Newark (1933-2018 )

Phillip Roth grew up in the Weequahic section of Newark, the second child of first-generation Jewish parents. Little did his high school classmates realize that the student whose yearbook caption read “a boy of real intelligence combined with wit and common sense” would go on to become one of the greatest writers of his generation. Readers of his more than two dozen novels often recognize people and places because Roth draws on his roots for inspiration. He has received just about every honor that can be bestowed on a writer, including the National Medal of Honor, two National Book Awards, two National Book Critics Circle Awards, three PEN/Faulkner Awards, the PEN/Nabokov Award, the PEN/Bellow Award, the Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal in Fiction, and a Pulitzer Prize. But for all of his awards and fame, we’re sure there is no complaint to add New Jersey Hall of Fame to the list.