Stanford professor Steven J. Zipperstein’s last book, Pogrom: Kishinev and the Tilt of History, was named a book of the year by The Economist, Mosaic Magazine, and Ha’aretz. Now he is deep into a biography of Philip Roth that promises insights quite different from the just-published authorized account. This book will appear in the prestigious Yale Jewish Lives series, which Zipperstein founded and edits. JRB editor Abraham Socher was joined on 5/25/21 for a conversation with Zipperstein about the arc of Ashkenazi Jewish life in the twentieth century, the art of biography, and Philip Roth, the enfant terrible and, eventually, éminence grise of American Jewish letters.
