The Brooklyn Follies by Paul Auster (author)

Birth:

Paul Auster was born February 3, 1947, in Newark, NJ.

Paul Auster's Background:

Paul Auster was born and raised in Newark, NJ. After graduating from Columbia University in 1970, he moved to Paris where he made his living translating the works of French authors. He returned to the states in 1974 to begin writing essays, poems, and novels of his own.

Paul Auster's Writing:

It's interesting to note that Auster's debut was a highly acclaimed memoir, The Invention of Solitude (1982), in which he wrote about the death of his father in one part, and in the other, explored the notions of chance and fate, themes that would continue through his novels.

Paul Auster has since authored numerous novels, poems, screenplays, and works of nonfiction. His 1987 "meta-detective" series, The New York Trilogy, was an existential collection of linked stories. City of Glass, the first of the three books, was adapted into a graphic novel in 2004.

In his later works, such as Oracle Night and The Brooklyn Follies, he continued to probe the nature of being. Oftentimes, his characters are writers themselves and do their questioning in the same manner that Auster does, through story-telling. It is his fascination with story-telling that finds his work labeled as “meta-fiction,” fiction which concerns itself with fiction.

Paul Auster Facts:

• Paul Auster wrote the screenplay for Smoke, starring Harvey Keitel and William Hurt and Lulu on the Bridge, starring Mira Sorvino and Harvey Keitel.
• Paul Auster married writer Siri Hustvedt in 1981. He was previously married to writer Lydia Davis.

Recent Work by Paul Auster:

Oracle Night (Henry Holt, 2003)
The Brooklyn Follies (Henry Holt, 2005)
Man in the Dark (Henry Holt, 2008)