Novelist, born in Newark, New Jersey, USA. He studied at Columbia University, then lived in France for four years. Since 1974 he has published poems, essays, novels and translations. His use of detective-story techniques to explore modern urban identity is evident in The New York Trilogy (19856). Later books include The Music of Chance (1990), Leviathan (1992), Timbuktu (1999), Oracle Night (2003), The Brooklyn Follies (2005), and Travels in the Scriptorium (2007).
Paul Benjamin Auster (born February 3, 1947, Newark, New Jersey) is a Brooklyn-based author.
Biography
Paul Auster was born in Newark, New Jersey, to Jewish middle class parents Samuel and Queenie Auster.
Writing
Auster's first novel was a detective novel called Squeeze Play and was written under the pseudonym Paul Benjamin (Benjamin is his middle name).
Auster gained renown for a series of three experimental detective stories published collectively as The New York Trilogy (1987).
Later Auster's works concentrate heavily on the role of coincidence and random events (The Music of Chance) or increasingly, the relationships between men and their peers and environment (The Book of Illusions, Leviathan).
Published works
Fiction
The New York Trilogy (1987) City of Glass (1985) Ghosts (1986) The Locked Room (1986) In the Country of Last Things (1987) Moon Palace (1989) The Music of Chance (1990) Leviathan (1992) Auggie Wren's Christmas Story (1992) Mr. Vertigo (1994) Timbuktu (1999) The Book of Illusions (2002) Oracle Night (2004) The Brooklyn Follies (2005) Travels in the Scriptorium (UK 2006, USA 2007) (Denmark 2006)Poetry
Disappearances: Selected Poems (1988) Ground Work (1990) Selected Poems (1998) Collected Poems (2004)Screenplays
Smoke (1995) Blue in the Face (1995) Lulu on the Bridge (1998) The Inner Life of Martin Frost (2006)Essays, memoirs, and autobiographies
The Art of Hunger (1982) The Invention of Solitude (1982) The Red Notebook (1995) Why Write (1996) Hand to Mouth (1997) Collected Prose: Autobiographical Writings, True Stories, Critical Essays, Prefaces, and Collaborations with Artists (2005) (includes The Invention of Solitude and Hand to Mouth)Edited collections
The Random House Book of Twentieth-Century French Poetry (1982) True Tales of American Life (First published under the title I Thought My Father Was God, and Other True Tales from NPR's National History Project) (2001)Translations
A Tomb for Anatole, by Stéphane Mallarmé (1983) Chronicle of the Guayaki Indians (1998) (translation of Pierre Clastres' ethnography Chronique des indiens Guayaki) The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert (2005)Misc
The Story of My Typewriter (2002)Other media
On the album As Smart as We Are by New York band One Ring Zero, Auster wrote the lyrics for the song "Natty Man Blues" based on Cincinnati poet Norman Finkelstein.
Michael Mantler's album Hide and Seek uses words by Auster from the play of the same name.
Paul Auster's voice can be heard on the 2005 album entitled We Must Be Losing It by the Farangs.
In 2006 Paul Auster directed the film The Inner Life of Martin Frost.
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