National Medal Winner
Roth, Philip, National Medal of Arts, 1998William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying and Light in August, Saul Bellow's The Adventures of Augie March and Herzog
"In my opinion, the two most powerful, most original forces--the writers who together form the backbone, the spine of twentieth-century American fiction--have been William Faulkner, in the first half of the century, and Saul Bellow, in the second. I think you ought to select two books by each of them to stand for the greatness of their achievement. I suggest Faulkner's As I Lay Dying and Light in August and Bellow's The Adventures of Augie March and Herzog."