Philip Roth Personal Library

Philip Roth Lecture, October 21st, 2025
The Newark Public Library, 5:30 PM – 9 PM

This year’s Philip Roth Lecture will be a conversation.

The Newark Public Library welcomes Steven Zipperstein, whose new Roth biography, Stung By Life, will be published this October.

The Library is the second stop on the author’s book tour. He will be in conversation with novelist Sam Graham-Felsen, previously the Historian of the library’s Philip Roth Personal Library.

The new Zipperstein Roth biography stands out as “a work of literature itself” (Judith Thurman), and as a “revelatory portrayal” of Roth, “solemn and hilarious, voraciously curious, a boundless sensual spirit riven by his craft” (Sean Wilentz)—the biography’s intelligence and prose capture Roth’s powers of observation and linguistic wit.

The author will be on hand to sign books following the presentation.