The invention of loneliness

Author text
was born on 3 February 1947 in Newark, New Jersey, as a descendant of immigrant Austrian Jews. He studied English and comparative literature at Columbia University New York (B.A. and M.A.) and then went to sea as a sailor on an oil tanker. 1971-74 he lived in France, mainly in Paris. After his return to the USA, he accepted a teaching position at Columbia University and also worked as a translator of French authors (Blanchot, Bouchet, Dupin, Joubert, Mallarmé, Sartre) and as an editor of French literature in American publishing houses. Paul Auster lives in Brooklyn, New York, is married to the writer Siri Hustvedt and has two children. He received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts (1977 for poetry, 1983 for prose), the France Culture Prix Etranger (1988) and the Morton Dauwen Zabel Award (1990).

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"The invention of solitude is... a surprisingly easy to read book of existential impact and unprecedented truthfulness ... Paul Auster, whose ancestors came from Austria, reminds us of a Robert Musil who read Hammett and Chandler." (Klaus Modick, Süddeutsche Zeitung)