Portnoy’s Complaint Author Philip Roth No More

New York: Philip Roth, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist who penned classics like Portnoy’s Complaint, has died of congestive heart failure, said Andrew Wylie, his literary agent. He was 85.

Roth was hospitalised two weeks ago with tachycardia, which he'd suffered for many years, said his friend, Judith Thurman. He was surrounded by close friends and family in his final moments on Tuesday, CNN reported.

He was one of America's most prolific 20th century novelists, a career that included more than two dozen books.

"From the beginning of his long and celebrated career, Philip Roth's fiction has often explored the human need to demolish, to challenge, to oppose, to pull apart," the Pulitzer committee said when it awarded him the prize for fiction two decades ago for the "American Pastoral".

In 2012, he announced that "Nemesis" published in 2010, would be his last one. He made the decision after he reread all his books. "I decided that I was done with fiction," he said at the time.

"I don't want to read any more of it, write any more of it, and I don't even want to talk about it anymore," CNN quoted him as saying at the time. " ... It's enough. I no longer feel this dedication to write what I have experienced my whole life."

Roth has never failed to provoke with his many books, including 1959's "Goodbye, Columbus and Five Short Stories", "The Plot Against America" and "Everyman."

IANS