Philip Roth’s ‘Our Gang’ in Persian

The novel “Our Gang,” written by the late American legendry author and the Pulitzer Prize winner Philip Roth, has been translated into Persian. Afshin Rezapour is the translator of the new book published by Qoqnoos Publication, ISNA reported on its Persian website.  Rezapour, who has previously translated “Ivan’s Childhood” by Vladimir Bogomolov and “Sophie’s Choice” by William Styron, believes the celebrated author’s unique sensitivity gives him the authority to reflect in his novels decline and deterioration in life and society. Roth’s fifth novel is a political satire written in the form of a closet drama, a play to be read rather than acted. It is centered on the character of “Trick E. Dixon”, a caricature of former US president Richard Nixon. From the outset Roth satirizes Nixon and his administration, particularly his secretary of state and shrewd political strategist Henry Kissinger along with his vice president Spiro Agnew.  Many of Roth’s fictions revolve around semi-autobiographical themes. Philip Milton Roth (1933–2018) first came to prominence with his 1959 novella “Goodbye, Columbus,” for which he received the US National Book Award for Fiction. He became one of the most awarded American writers of his generation. His books twice received the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and three times the PEN/Faulkner Award. Roth received a Pulitzer Prize for his 1997 novel “American Pastoral”. “The Human Stain” (2000) was awarded the UK’s WH Smith Literary Award for the best book of the year. In 2001, in Prague, he received the Franz Kafka Prize in its first edition.