The Human Stain

The Human Stain (2000) is a novel by Philip Roth set in late 1990s rural New England.

The Human Stain (2000), another Zuckerman novel, was awarded the United Kingdom's WH Smith Literary Award for the best book of the year.

A national bestseller, The Human Stain was adapted as a film by the same name directed by Robert Benton.

Its screenplay, by Nicholas Meyer, is based on the novel of the same name by Philip Roth.

Its first person narrator is 65-year-old author Nathan Zuckerman, who appeared in several earlier Roth novels, and who also figures in both American Pastoral (1997) and I Married a Communist (1998), two books that form a loose trilogy with The Human Stain.

He reintroduced Zuckerman as witness and narrator in a trilogy of historical novels: American Pastoral (1997), I Married a Communist (1998), and The Human Stain (2000), set in the period from the 1960s into the 1990s.

After Broyard's death in 1990, it had been revealed that he racially passed during his many years employed as a critic at The New York Times.

Roth described in a 2012 piece for The New Yorker how his novel was inspired by an event in the life of his friend Melvin Tumin, a "professor of sociology at Princeton for some thirty years".

Tumin's friend, the author Philip Roth, said that his novel The Human Stain (2000) was inspired by an incident that happened to the professor.

In the reviews of the book in both the daily and the Sunday New York Times in 2000, Kakutani and Lorrie Moore suggested that the central character of Coleman Silk might have been inspired by Anatole Broyard, a well-known New York literary editor of the Times.

Given Broyard's stature in the literary world and discussions about his life after his death, numerous literary critics, such as Michiko Kakutani, Janet Maslin, Lorrie Moore, Charles Taylor, Touré, and Brent Staples, have made comparisons between the character Coleman Silk in Philip Roth's The Human Stain (2000) and Broyard.

2001 Philip Roth, The Human Stain

The Human Stain (2000) is a novel by Philip Roth set in late 1990s rural New England.

Its first person narrator is 65-year-old author Nathan Zuckerman, who appeared in several earlier Roth novels, and who also figures in both American Pastoral (1997) and I Married a Communist (1998), two books that form a loose trilogy with The Human Stain.

Its first person narrator is 65-year-old author Nathan Zuckerman, who appeared in several earlier Roth novels, and who also figures in both American Pastoral (1997) and I Married a Communist (1998), two books that form a loose trilogy with The Human Stain.

Its first person narrator is 65-year-old author Nathan Zuckerman, who appeared in several earlier Roth novels, and who also figures in both American Pastoral (1997) and I Married a Communist (1998), two books that form a loose trilogy with The Human Stain.

Zuckerman acts largely as an observer as the complex story of the protagonist, Coleman Silk, a retired professor of classics, is slowly revealed.

A national bestseller, The Human Stain was adapted as a film by the same name directed by Robert Benton.

Released in 2003, the film starred Anthony Hopkins, Nicole Kidman, Wentworth Miller and Gary Sinise.

Released in 2003, the film starred Anthony Hopkins, Nicole Kidman, Wentworth Miller and Gary Sinise.

Released in 2003, the film starred Anthony Hopkins, Nicole Kidman, Wentworth Miller and Gary Sinise.

Released in 2003, the film starred Anthony Hopkins, Nicole Kidman, Wentworth Miller and Gary Sinise.

Silk is a former professor and dean of faculty at nearby Athena College, a fictional institution in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts.

Silk is a former professor and dean of faculty at nearby Athena College, a fictional institution in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts.

Silk is accused of racism by two African-American students over the use of the word spooks, using the term to describe their absence from the classroom (like ghosts) rather than in the racially derogatory sense.

Silk is accused of racism by two African-American students over the use of the word spooks, using the term to describe their absence from the classroom (like ghosts) rather than in the racially derogatory sense.

Silk is accused of racism by two African-American students over the use of the word spooks, using the term to describe their absence from the classroom (like ghosts) rather than in the racially derogatory sense.