If you write an open letter and post it on a New Yorker blog, you should expect a response. Especially if you are Philip Roth.

Mr. Roth created a medium-sized stir when he discovered Wikipedia and wrote them an open letter on The New Yorker’s Pageturner blog two weeks ago.  Mr. Roth took issue with Wikipedia’s entry for his book The Human Stain – the character of Coleman Silk, the professor who “passes” as white was inspired by Mr. Roth’s friend Melvin Tumin, not the author and literary figure Anatole Broyard, as Wikipedia (and frankly everyone else) assumed. Despite the fact that Mr. Roth felt he was an authority on his own characters that he created, Wikipedia required secondary sourcing. It should be noted that the Read More