Paul Auster, a prolific, prize-winning man of letters and filmmaker known for such inventive narratives and meta-narratives as 鈥淭he New York Trilogy鈥 and 鈥4 3 2 1,鈥 has died at age 77.
Auster's death was confirmed Wednesday by his literary representatives, the Carol Mann Agency, which did not immediately provide additional details. Auster had been diagnosed with cancer in 2022.
Starting in the 1970s, Auster completed more than 30 books, translated into dozens of languages. A longtime fixture in the Brooklyn literary scene, he never achieved major commercial success in the U.S., but he was widely admired overseas for his cosmopolitan worldview and erudite and introspective style and was named a chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government in 1991. He was also shortlisted for the Booker Prize and voted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Called the 鈥渄ean of American post-modernists鈥 and 鈥渢he most meta of American meta-fictional writers,鈥 Auster blended history, politics, genre experiments, existential quests and self-conscious references to writers and writing. 鈥淭he New York Trilogy,鈥 which included 鈥淐ity of Glass,鈥 鈥淕hosts鈥 and 鈥淭he Locked Room," was a postmodern detective saga in which names and identities blur and one protagonist is a private eye named Paul Auster. The brief 鈥淭ravels in the Scriptorium鈥 wraps a story inside a story as a political prisoner finds himself compelled to read a series of narratives by fellow victims that will eventually include his own.
The author鈥檚 longest and most ambitious work of fiction was 鈥4 3 2 1,鈥 published in 2017 and a Booker finalist. The 800-plus page novel is a tale of quadraphonic realism in the post World War II era, the parallel journeys of Archibald Isaac Ferguson from summer camp and high school baseball to student life in New York and Paris during the mass protests of the late 1960s.
鈥淚dentical but different, meaning four boys with the same name parents, the same bodies, and the same genetic material, but each one living in a different house in a different town with his own set of circumstances,鈥 Auster writes in the novel. 鈥淓ach one on his own separate path, and yet all of them still the same person, three imaginary versions of himself, and then himself thrown in as Number Four for good measure; the author of the book.鈥
His other works included the nonfiction compilations 鈥淕roundwork鈥 and 鈥淭alking to Strangers鈥; a family memoir, 鈥淭he Invention of Solitude鈥; a biography of novelist Stephen Crane; the novels 鈥淟eviathan鈥 and 鈥淭alking to Strangers鈥 and the poetry collection 鈥淲hite Space.鈥 In his most recent novel, 鈥淏aumgardner,鈥 the title character is a widowed professor haunted by mortality and asking himself 鈥渨here his mind will be taking him next.鈥
Auster was so much the old-fashioned author that he worked on a typewriter and disdained email and other forms of electronic communication. But he did have an unusually active film career compared to his writing peers.
In the mid-1990s, Auster collaborated with director Wayne Wang on the acclaimed art-house film 鈥淪moke,鈥 an adaptation of Auster鈥檚 humorous story about a Brooklyn cigar shop and a certain customer named Paul. The film starred Harvey Keitel, Stockard Channing and William Hurt among others and brought Auster an Independent Spirit Award for best first screenplay. Wang and Auster quickly followed 鈥淪moke鈥 with 鈥淏lue in the Face,鈥 an improvised tale which returned to the Brooklyn cigar store and again starred Keitel, along with appearances by everyone from Lou Reed to Lily Tomlin.
Auster eventually made the movies himself. Keitel was featured in 鈥淟ulu on the Bridge,鈥 a love story released in 1998 that Auster directed and co-wrote with Vanessa Redgrave. Nine years later, Auster wrote and directed the drama 鈥淭he Inner Life of Martin Frost,鈥 starring David Thewlis as a novelist and Ir猫ne Jacob as the woman with an uncanny connection to the story he鈥檚 been writing.
鈥淭he four times I鈥檝e worked on movies, I鈥檝e never had a problem talking to actors,鈥 Auster told director Wim Wenders during a 2017 conversation that ran in Interview magazine. 鈥淚 always felt in great harmony with them. It was after those experiences that I realized there鈥檚 a similarity between writing fiction and acting. The writer does it with the words on the page, and the actor does it with his body. The effort is the same.鈥
Auster married fellow author Siri Hustvedt in 1982 and had a daughter, Sophie, who appeared in 鈥淭he Inner Life of Martin Frost.鈥 He also had a son, Daniel, from an earlier marriage to the author-translator Lydia Davis. Daniel Auster would struggle with drug addiction and die of an overdose in 2022, shortly after being charged with second-degree manslaughter in the death of his infant daughter, Ruby.
Paul Auster never commented on publicly on his son鈥檚 death, but he had written often about parenthood. In 鈥淭he Invention of Solitude,鈥 published in 1982, he reflected on the 鈥渢housands of hours鈥 he has spent with Daniel in the first three years of his life and wondered whether they mattered. 鈥淚t will be lost forever,鈥 Auster wrote. 鈥淎ll these things will vanish for the boy鈥檚 memory forever.鈥
Born in Newark, New Jersey, Paul Benjamin Auster grew up in a middle class Jewish home torn between his father鈥檚 thrift, to the point of miserliness, and his mother鈥檚 urge to spend, to the point of recklessness. He would soon feel like an outsider in his family, soured by their materialism and more inspired by James Joyce鈥檚 鈥淯lysses鈥 or the tales of Edgar Allan Poe than by the security of a traditional job.
His ideals would be well tested. After graduating from Columbia University, Auster struggled for years before he was able to find a publisher or earn money from his books. He wrote poetry, translated French literature, worked on an oil tanker, attempted to market a baseball board game and even thought of earning income by growing worms in his basement.
鈥淎ll along, my only ambition had been to write,鈥 Auster wrote in a brief memoir 鈥淗and to Mouth,鈥 published in 1995. 鈥淚 had known that as early as 16 or 17 years old, and I had never deluded myself into thinking I could make a living at it. Becoming a writer is not a 鈥榗areer decision鈥 like becoming a doctor or a policeman. You don鈥檛 choose it so much as get chosen, and once you accept the fact that you鈥檙e not fit for anything else, you have to be prepared to walk a long, hard road for the rest of your days.鈥
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