A Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning author, he is best known for works such as Goodbye, Columbus (1959), Portnoy's Complaint (1969), American Pastoral (1997), and The Human Stain (2000). In 2001, he became the first ever recipient of the Franz Kafka Prize.
He graduated from Bucknell University and subsequently earned a Master's degree in English literature from the University of Chicago. He published his debut novella, Goodbye, Columbus, in 1959.
His 1997 novel, American Pastoral, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
He had two brief marriages. His first, to Margaret Martinson Williams, lasted from 1959-1963; his second, to Claire Bloom, spanned the first four years of the 1990s.
He was inspired to write after meeting Saul Bellow in 1956.
