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.
After his first marriage failed, he achieved 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”.
Extensive works
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 unforeseeable, random events and fantastic twists shape their existence and give rise to philosophical reflections on art and culture, identity, life and death.
More recently, Auster has published some 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 the US author Stephen Crane (1871-1900) entitled “In Flames” (original title: “Burning Boy”). The relatively short novel “Baumgartner” (around 200 pages) was published in the USA last November.
