Paris Review honours Philip Roth with Hadada award
Roth, who made his literary debut in the journal more than half-a-century ago, follows Norman Mailer, John Ashbery and Joan Didion as recipient of the award
Alison Flood, guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 14 April 2010

Above  - Philip Roth. Photograph: Orjan F. Ellingvag/Dagbladet/Corbis

Philip Roth missed out on the Literary Review's bad sex in fiction prize last year to Jonathan Littell but the grand old man of American letters was yesterday honoured with a somewhat less embarrassing award: the Paris Review's Hadada prize.

Given annually to "a distinguished member of the literary community who has demonstrated a strong and unique commitment to literature", the prize comes in the form of a bronze statuette and has gone in the past to Norman Mailer, John Ashbery and Joan Didion.

The Hadada was dreamed up in 2003 by the Paris Review's founder George Plimpton to honour a writer, reader, editor, publisher or organisation. The statuette is of the Paris Review bird which appears on every issue, an eagle perched on a pen. Because doubts have been raised over the image's resemblance to an eagle, it was decided to name the award after Plimpton's favourite bird, the hadada – an ibis.
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