The US best-selling author Paul Auster was one of the most popular writers of his generation. He became famous, among other things, with the “New York Trilogy”. Auster has now died at the age of 77.
The US writer Paul Auster is dead. The author of the “New York Trilogy” died at the age of 77 as a result of lung cancer, according to the writer Jacki Lyden, who was a friend of Auster’s.
Auster died in his home in the New York borough of Brooklyn. His wife Siri Hustvedt and his daughter Sophie Auster were with him, Lyden said. Hustvedt made the author’s cancer public last year. The New York Times and the British Guardian first reported on Auster’s death.
Auster was born in Newark in 1947 to Jewish immigrants and dreamed of becoming a writer from an early age. He studied literature in New York and France and initially supported himself through teaching assignments and translation work.
Eccentric, broken characters
After his first marriage failed, he made his breakthrough in the mid-1980s with the “New York Trilogy” – three loosely connected detective stories entitled “City of Glass”, “Slaughter Shadow” and “Behind Closed Doors”. He later established himself as an acclaimed best-selling author with works such as “Moon Over Manhattan”, “Mr. Vertigo” and “The Book of Illusions”.
Auster’s characters, often influenced by his own life story, are eccentric, broken characters. You lose yourself in dark abysses and obscure corners in search of yourself. The unpredictability, random events and fantastic twists shape their existence and give rise to philosophical reflections on art and culture, identity, life and death.
The best-selling author has received numerous awards. He was one of the most popular and successful US writers of his generation; his works have been translated into more than 40 languages. He was also known in Germany.
Auster only managed one side per day
Auster wrote slowly throughout his life. First drafts by hand, then finished manuscripts on the typewriter. He creates about one page a day, Auster once told the dpa news agency. “But if you keep at it, the pages start to loosen up.”
More recently, Auster has published several extensive works, including the 2017 novel “4 3 2 1”, which runs to more than 1,000 pages, and the approximately 800-page biography of US author Stephen Crane entitled “In Flames”.
“Baumgartner” was his last work
The relatively short novel “Baumgartner” (around 200 pages) was published in the USA last November. It’s about a widower who mourns the loss of his wife. Auster’s wife Hustvedt calls it a “small, delicate and wonderful book.”
After his cancer diagnosis, Auster underwent a series of treatments, as he told the Guardian when “Baumgartner” was published. “I feel like my health is so precarious that this might be the last thing I ever write.” But if this is the end, then it was worth it – he leaves surrounded by “human kindness” in his circle of friends.
Antje Passenheim, ARD New York, tagesschau, May 1st, 2024 9:12 a.m