Which author won the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for American Pastoral?

Philip Roth won the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for American Pastoral.

Roth published the novel in 1997. Its central figure is Seymour “Swede” Levov, a successful Jewish American athlete and businessman from Newark, New Jersey. His idealized postwar life is disrupted when his daughter becomes involved in violent political protest during the social upheavals of the 1960s.

The novel examines the gap between the American dream and historical reality. It moves through themes including family loyalty, political radicalism, assimilation, memory, and the limits of parental understanding. The narrator is Nathan Zuckerman, a recurring Roth character who reconstructs the Levov story.

American Pastoral was the first novel to win Roth the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. It is not an autobiography, although its Newark setting and Jewish American concerns overlap with elements found throughout Roth's work. A film adaptation directed by and starring Ewan McGregor was released in 2016.