FACTBOX - Key facts about U.S. novelist Philip Roth

Author Philip Roth poses in New York September 15, 2010.

REUTERS - Revered American novelist Philip Roth has said he is finished with writing after more than 50 years and 30 books.

Roth made his remarks in a French magazine interview, and his publishers, Houghton Mifflin, on Friday confirmed the writer's decision.

Following are some key facts about Roth:

* Born March 19, 1933, in Newark, New Jersey, to Jewish-American parents.

* Received an undergraduate degree at Bucknell University and a master's in English Literature at the University of Chicago, later dropping out of the Ph.D. program in 1959 to write film reviews for The New Republic.

* Although his work often dealt with Judaism, Roth rejected the label of Jewish-American writer, telling Britain's Guardian newspaper in 2005 that "I know exactly what it means to be Jewish and it's really not interesting. I'm an American."

* Burst onto the literary scene in 1959 with "Goodbye, Columbus," a satire of religion and class in post-World War Two America. The novella was adapted into a 1969 film starring Richard Benjamin and Ali MacGraw.

* Married actress Claire Bloom in 1990. They divorced in 1995 and a year later Bloom published an unflattering depiction of Roth in a memoir of their relationship, "Leaving a Doll's House."

* One of America's most honored writers, Roth won a Pulitzer Prize for 1997's "American Pastoral" and National Book Awards for "Goodbye, Columbus" and 1995's "Sabbath's Theater." He was the first three-time winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award (1994, 2001 and 2007).

* Roth's most recent novel, "Nemesis," was published in 2010.

(Writing by Eric Beech and Eric Kelsey; editing by Jill Serjeant and Matthew Lewis)