Operation Shylock

Operation Shylock: A Confession is a novel by the American writer Philip Roth, published in 1993. It is written in the first person by a narrator called Philip Roth, and it deliberately blurs the line between what happened and what did not.

The narrator is recovering from three months of collapse caused by the side effects of Halcion, a sleeping pill that was later withdrawn. He goes to Israel to interview the Israeli writer Aharon Appelfeld, and while he is there he is sidetracked by the news that an impersonator has taken his identity, a man who looks like him, uses the same name, and speaks in his name.

He attends the trial of the accused war criminal John Demjanjuk, and he becomes involved in the intelligence mission that gives the book its title. The novel explores the nature of the self, Jewish identity in Israel and in the diaspora, and the relationship between a writer and the work he has signed.

Its postmodern devices and its treatment of the Israeli-Arab conflict made it controversial when it appeared, and it has been read with more favour since.