From Bondage

Henry Roth

'A landmark of the American literary century' Boston Globe

Sixty years after the publication of his great modernist masterpiece Call It Sleep Henry Roth returned with Mercy of a Rude Stream - a sequence of four internationally-acclaimed epic novels of immigrant life in early-twentieth century New York.
Written in the last year of Roth's life this is the impassioned story of a young man's love affair with literature and with his teacher. As Ira Stigman turns from his incestuous childhood affairs he finds himself competing with his best friend for the attention of their literature professor. FROM BONDAGE is the the moving culmination of a great writer's life.

'The literary comeback of the century' Vanity Fair

'As unquenchably vibrant with life as the immigrants whose existence it commemorates' Sunday Times

'A dynamic and moving event . . . a stirring portrait of a vanished culture . . . a poignant chapter in the life-drama of a unique American writer' Newsweek

'Although it is sixty years since a new novel by Mr Roth last hit the bookshelves it has been worth the wait' The Economist

'Fresh and touching' Wall Street Journal

'A precision of detail which brings the sounds from the tenements the heat of the sidewalk steaming off the pages' Sunday Express

'A meticulous evocation of a now-distant episode of the American experience' New York Times Book Review

Mercy of a Rude Stream: The Complete Novels includes
1) A Star Shines Over Mt. Morris Park
2) A Diving Rock on the Hudson
3) From Bondage
4) Requiem for Harlem.

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