bio notes:
born: 2/8/1906
died: 10/13/1995
born as: Henry Roth

American writer with a most unusual career trajectory. His first novel, Call It Sleep was published in 1934 but after this he turned away from writing for many decades. The novel was largely forgotten until the mid-1960s, when it was republished to considerable acclaim as a classic of the Jewish-immigrant experience and the proletarian novel. Returning to writing, Roth produced four more novels known collectively as Mercy of a Rude Stream before his death.