London, May 19: Philip Roth, the prize-winning author of `American Pastoral' and `Portnoy''s Complaint', was named Wednesday as the winner of the fourth Man Booker International Prize.

The award and 60,000 pounds prize money is presented to writers for their "achievement in fiction on the world stage", the organisers said.

"This is a great honour and I''m delighted to receive it," BBC News quoted Roth, 78, as saying.

His body of work includes the 1997 novel American Pastoral, for which he received the Pulitzer Prize. At 26, he wrote his first book Goodbye, Columbus.

The announcement was made at a press conference in Australia, during the Sydney Writers'' Festival.

The award will be presented at a formal dinner in London on 28 June, however a spokeswoman said Roth would be unable to attend.

The American author said he was grateful to the judges for awarding him the "esteemed prize".

"One of the particular pleasures I''ve had as a writer is to have my work read internationally despite all the heartaches of translation that that entails," Roth said.

"I hope the prize will bring me to the attention of readers around the world who are not familiar with my work. This is a great honour and I''m delighted to receive it," he added. (ANI)