Pages 3-11 Summary

In The Prague Orgy by Philip Roth, Nathan Zuckerman is a Jewish American novelist and the protagonist and narrator. He goes on a quest in Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1976 to retrieve the unpublished manuscript of a great Yiddish/Czech writer. During his time in Prague, he encounters eccentric writers and artists who are obsessed with sex and the fact they are being spied on by the Czech police. He explores the meaning of Judaism and literature on his journey.

The novel opens in a hotel room on January 11, 1976 in New York City. Nathan Zuckerman, an American novelist, meets Zdenek Sisovsky, a Czech writer whose writing is banned in Czechoslovakia. Sisovsky flatters Zuckerman, saying he is a great American writer. He refuses to tell Zuckerman why his book is banned, but Zuckerman presses. Sisovsky explains his satirical book is banned because the Russians...