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This work examines the literary and biographical connections between Marcel Proust and Philip Roth against the backdrop of European and American cultural change through a social and literary narrative involving war, literature and fashion. It emphasizes the parallel treatment of memory, place, history, illness, music and sex by Proust and Roth. The authors also possessed a mutual dependence on the past as they discovered their vocation as writers. Proust and the impact of political and social change at the end of the Belle Époque, including WWI, matches Roth and the impact of World War II and the revolutionary sixties, two of many themes and concerns they share.
Ira Nadel is Professor of English, Emeritus at the University of British Columbia, Canada. He is Author of Philip Roth: A Counterlife (2021).