Saul Bellow said, ‘I have tried to fit my soul into the Jewish-writer category, but it does not feel comfortably accommodated there.’

To many of us, Bellow and authors such as Philip Roth are quintessentially Jewish writers. But does the concept of a Jewish writer even exist? Three of our greatest living – and ‘Jewish’ – writers discuss the notion.

Eva Hoffman grew up in Cracow, Poland, before emigrating in her teens to Canada and then the United States. She is currently a Visiting Professor at the Institute for Advanced Studies at UCL. She lives in London.

Howard Jacobson is a multi-award-winning writer of 13 novels and five works of non-fiction, as wellas a regular contributor to major newspapers and journals, including a regular column for The Independent. He won the Man Booker Prize for The Finkler Question.

David Herman is a former TV producer and has been a freelance writer for the past 15 years, writing for the New Statesman, Prospect, The Guardian and The Independent. He is chief fiction reviewer of The Jewish Chronicle.

In Association with the TLS.

Sponsored by Dangoor Education.