Died by lung cancer at the age of 77, Paul Auster left his mark on American literature over the last 40 years.
Paul Auster, monument of contemporary American literature, died in New York at the age of 77, as announced by the New York Times on Tuesday April 30. Carried away by the complications of lung cancer, he left behind around thirty books, translated into more than 40 languages, which placed him in the pantheon of modern authors.
Passionate about New York, Paul Auster has devoted his career to depicting characters between two lives in the jungle of Manhattan, exploring with them the themes of identity, chance, destiny and the resonances of the past in our present. Selection of some of his most representative works.
• The Invention of Solitude (1982)
Paul Auster’s first publication, and the one that allowed him to make a name for himself on the American literary scene, is an autobiographical novel. The first part, Portrait of an invisible man, opens with the death of his father and continues with his portrait and the description of their relationship. In the second, The Book of Memory, the author gives his thoughts on chance, destiny, identity, father-son relationships. And thus lays the foundations for his career as a novelist, during which he will continue to explore these themes.
• New York trilogy (1985-1987)
It is perhaps the most emblematic work of Paul Auster, a writer who has become inseparable from New York. The three novels of this triptych, City of Glass, Returned And The Hidden Room, follow enigmatic characters in their quest for identity in the heart of a labyrinthine New York. After promising first steps in the United States with The Invention of Solitude, New York trilogy gives Paul Auster international fame.
• Moon Palace (1989)
Without doubt the closest thing Paul Auster produced to an adventure novel. Moon Palace spans three generations to tell the tribulations of Marco Stanley Fodd, newly homeless, who begins to get back on his feet thanks to the help of a friend who pulls him from the streets of Manhattan. What follows is an epic journey that will take him to the Midwest, following in the footsteps of his past.
• Leviathan (1992)
Peter Aaron, novelist, learns in the newspaper of the death of his colleague and friend Benjamin Sachs. He then retraces the journey of the latter, both a talented writer and a bomber, traumatized by the explosion of that of Hiroshima and convinced of the impact that this catastrophe had on his life. This novel earned Paul Auster the 1993 Foreign Medici Prize.
• Brooklyn Follies (2005)
Nathan, a newly divorced sixty-year-old, returns to Brooklyn and reconnects with Tom, his nephew. These two characters, disappointed by life, talk in their fatalism until their daily lives are disrupted by the arrival of Lucy, Tom’s niece. A book about free will and the possibility of experiencing the best after the worst, in an America in full decline.
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