Paul Auster, página 4 de 24

Austers tale of obsession from the author of contemporary classic The New York Trilogy: a literary voice for the ages (Guardian)The Book of Illusions, written with breath-taking urgency and precision, plunges the reader into a universe in which the comic and the tragic, the real and the imagined, and the violent and the tender dissolve into one another.One mans obsession with the mysterious life of a silent film star takes him on a journey into a shadow-world of lies, illusions, and unexpected love. After losing his wife and young sons in a plane crash, Vermont professor David Zimmer spends his waking hours mired in grief. Then, watching television one night, he stumbles upon a lost film by silent comedian Hector Mann, and remembers how to laugh . . .Mann was a comic genius, in trademark white suit and fluttering black moustache. But one morning in 1929 he walked out of his house and was never heard from again. Zimmers obsession with Mann drives him to publish a study of his work; whereupon he receives a letter postmarked New Mexico, supposedly written by Manns wife, and inviting him to visit the great Mann himself. Can Hector Mann be alive? Zimmer cannot decide - until a strange woman appears on his doorstep and makes the decision for him, changing his life forever.A nearly flawless work . . . Auster will be remembered as one of the great writers of our time.San Francisco ChronicleAusters elegant, finely calibrated The Book of Illusions is a haunting feat of intellectual gamesmanship.TheNew York Times

After years spent as a struggling translator and poet, Paul Auster published his first works of fiction in the mid 1980s - City of Glass, Ghosts and The Locked Room, three brilliant variations on the classic detective story which, published together as The New York Trilogy, became the international hit that established his reputation.Introducing themes that have run throughout his work ever since, Auster managed to combine formal experimentation with classic storytelling, and to inform his exploration of America and the self with a distinctly European sensibility. Included here in the first volume of his collected novels, alongside his seminal debut are In the Country of Last Things, a dark, dystopian vision of the future, and Moon Palace, a sweeping multi-generation novel that begins in the summer that man first walked on the moon.All told in his characteristic clean prose style, these three novels form the first chapter in an ongoing career that has marked Auster out as one of the most original, relevant and enduring novelists at work today.

The celebrated author of The New York Trilogy, The Book of Illusions and Invisible presents here a highly personal collection of essays, prefaces and occasional pieces written for magazines and newspapers. Ranging in subject from Walter Raleigh to Kafka; Hawthorne to the high-wire artist Philippe Petit; conceptual artist Sophie Calle to Austers own Olympia typewriter; the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers to his beloved New York City itself, Auster displays all his customary flair, wit and insight.Including several of his major works - important books in their own right, such as Hand to Mouth and The Invention of Solitude - this collection demonstrates and reaffirms the pre-eminent position Paul Auster holds in contemporary literature and criticism.

In The Music of Chance, the story of Jim Nashe and Jack Pozzi, Auster evokes the strong European influences of Samuel Beckett and Franz Kafka in a brilliant and unsettling parable of loss and gambling. In Leviathan, he makes perhaps his most direct attempt at exploring the political reality of contemporary American life, through the figure of Peter Aaron and his challenge to the complacency of modern life. Finally, in Mr Vertigo Auster crafts a cautionary tale of greed and exploitation in the story of Walt, the irrepressible orphan from the Mid-West, who learns the art of levitation under the tutelage of Master Yehudi. Highly varied, yet instantly recognisable as the work of the same storyteller, these three novels form the next chapter in the ongoing career of one of Americas most enduring and fascinating writers. Paul Auster is one of those sages with confounding talent - confounding for one because hes simply that good . . . He belongs among Vonnegut, Roth, and DeLillo . . . Claire HoworthAuster truly is a master of his art.Harpers Bazaar

Paul Auster takes the reader on a vivid journey through the brief 29 years of Stephen Cranes life. Auster analyses the major works with such enthusiasm that the reader immediately wants to read Cranes work.Auster also brings to life the world of fin de siecle America as the 19th century ends and the 20th is beginning.This pulsating world is the background to a life lived at a fever pitch - in war zones, near-drowning on his way to the Spanish American War, as well involvement in a scandalous love affair that caused him to leave the country.Crane died in 1900, but he is not the last of the Victorians, he is the first of the Moderns.

One of the most original and audacious autobiographies ever written by a writer.Le MondeHand to Mouth tells the story of the young Paul Austers struggle to stay afloat. By turns poignant and comic, Austers memoir is essentially a book about money - and what it means not to have it. From one odd job to the next, from one failed scheme to another, Auster investigates his own stubborn compulsion to make art and, in the process, treats us to a series of remarkable adventures and unforgettable encounters. Hand to Mouth is essential reading for anyone interested in Paul Auster, in the figure of the struggling artist, in the nature of poverty, or in baseball.

Paul Austers enthralling adventure story from the author of contemporary classic The New York Trilogy: a literary voice for the ages (Guardian) It was the summer that men first walked on the moon. I was very young back then, but did not believe there would ever be a future. I wanted to live dangerously, to push myself as far as I could go, and then see what happened when I got there.So begins the mesmerising narrative of Marco Stanley Fogg - orphan, child of the 1960s, a quester by nature. Moon Palace is his story - a novel that spans three generations, from the early years of this century to the first lunar landings, and moves from the canyons of Manhattan to the cruelly beautiful landscape of the American West. Filled with suspense, unlikely coincidences, wrenching tragedies and marvellous flights of lyricism and erudition, the novel carries the reader effortlessly along with Marcos search - for love, for his unknown father, and for the key to the elusive riddle of his origins and his fate.Clever: very. Surprising: always - Auster is a master.TheTimes

Austers novel of love and forgiveness from the author of contemporary classic The New York Trilogy: a literary voice for the ages (Guardian) Sunset Park is set in the sprawling flatlands of Florida, where twenty-eight-year-old Miles is photographing the last lingering traces of families who have abandoned their houses due to debt or foreclosure. Miles is haunted by guilt for having inadvertently caused the death of his step-brother, a situation that caused him to flee his father and step-mother in New York seven years ago.What keeps him in Florida is his relationship with a teenage high-school girl, Pilar, but when her family threatens to expose their relationship, Miles decides to protect Pilar by going back to Brooklyn, where he settles in a squat to prepare himself to face the inevitable confrontation with his father - a confrontation he has been avoiding for years.Set against the backdrop of the devastating global recession, and pulsing with the energy of Austers previous novel Invisible, Sunset Park is as mythic as it is contemporary, as in love with baseball as it is with literature. It is above all, a story about love and forgiveness - not only among men and women, but also between fathers and sons.

Austers existential tale of Mr Blank from the author of contemporary classic The New York Trilogy: a literary voice for the ages (Guardian) An old man sits in a room, with a single door and window, a bed, a desk and a chair. Each day he awakes with no memory, unsure of whether or not he is locked into the room. Attached to the few objects around him are one-word, hand-written, labels and on the desk is a series of vaguely familiar black-and-white photgraphs and four piles of paper. Then a middle-aged woman called Anna enters and talks of pills and treatment, but also of love and promises.Who is this Mr Blank, and what is his fate? What does Anna represent from his past - and will he have enough time to ever make sense of the clues that arise?After the huge success of The Brooklyn Follies, Travels in the Scriptorium sees Auster return to more metaphysical territory. A dark puzzle, and a game that implicates both reader and writer alike, it is an ingenious exploration of language, responsibility and the passage of time.

In Timbuktu, troubled Brooklyn poet-saint Willy G. Christmas embarks on one last great adventure in the company of his canine sidekick Mr Bones. In The Book of Illusions a grieving professor finds his obsession with the true-life story of a great silent comedian leading him into a mysterious shadow-world. In Oracle Night a novelist lately recovered from near-fatal illness falls under the spell of a blank notebook that is seemingly the source of eeire premonitions and bewildering events. And in The Brooklyn Follies an uncle and his nephew, both wounded by past misfortunes, wind up in the same Brooklyn neighbourhood and find their lives profoundly affected by a little girl who refuses to speak. Highly varied yet instantly recognisable, these four novels comprise the most recent chapter in the ongoing career of an author now responsible for ten great American novels.Auster has an enormous talent for creating worlds that are both fantastic and believable . . . His novels are uniformly difficult to put down, a testament to his storytelling gifts.San Francisco Chronicle

The figure of the young American poet living in Paris is familiar from Paul Austers celebrated novels; here that character is realised in Austers own stunningly accomplished verse. His penetrating and charged poetry resembles little else in recent American literature. This collection of his poems, translations, and composition notes from early in his career furnish yet further evidence of his literary mastery.Taut, densely lyrical and everywhere informed by a powerful and subtle music, this selection begins with the compact verse fragments of Spokes (written when Auster was in his early twenties) and Unearth, continues on through the more ample meditations of Wall Writing, Disappearances, Effigies, Fragments From the Cold, Facing the Music, and White Spaces, then moves further back in time to include Austers revealing translations of many of the French poets who influenced his own writing - including Paul Eluard, Andre Breton, Tristan Tzara, Philippe Soupault, Robert Desnos and Rene Char - as well as the provocative and previously unpublished Notes From A Composition Book (1967). An introduction by Norman Finkelstein connects biographical elements to a consideration of the work, and takes in Austers early literary and philosophical influences. For those interested in Paul Austers novels - the now-classic New York Trilogy or The Brooklyn Follies - this book is an invaluable opportunity to witness his early development.Powerful, sometimes haunting, cool, precise and limpid, this view from the past to the present will appeal to those unfamiliar with this aspect of Austers work, as well as those already acquainted with his poetry. Readers will agree that Austers grasp on language and the world around him is not only questioning, but mysterious and very human, perceptive, and deeply compelling

Austers haunting exploration of war in a post 9/11 world from the author of contemporary classic The New York Trilogy: a literary voice for the ages (Guardian) I am alone in the dark, turning the world around in my head as I struggle through another bout of insomnia, another white night in the great American wilderness.Seventy-two-year-old August Brill is recovering from a car accident in his daughters house in Vermont. When sleep refuses to come, he lies in bed and tells himself stories, struggling to push back thoughts about things he would rather forget - his wifes recent death and the horrific murder, in Iraq, of his granddaughters boyfriend, Titus. Brill, a retired book critic, imagines a parallel world in which America is not at war with Iraq but with itself. In this other America the Twin Towers did not fall on 9/11, and the 2000 election results led to secession, as state after state pulled away from the union and a bloody civil war ensued. As the night progresses, Brills story grows increasingly intense, and what he is so desperately trying to avoid insists on being told. Joined in the early hours by his granddaughter, he gradually opens up to her and recounts another hidden story, this time of his own marriage. After she falls asleep, he at last finds the courage to revisit the trauma of Tituss death.Passionate and shocking, political and personal: Man in the Dark is a novel that reflects the consequences of 9/11, that forces us to confront the blackness of night even as it celebrates the existence of ordinary joys in a world capable of the most grotesque violence.

In this acrobatic and virtuosic collection, Paul Auster traces the compulsion to make literature. In a selection of interviews, as well as in the essay The Red Notebook itself, Auster reflects upon his own work, on the need to break down the boundary between living and writing, and on the use of certain genre conventions to penetrate matters of memory and identity. The Red Notebook both illuminates and undermines our accepted notions about literature, and guides us towards a finer understanding of the dangerously high stakes involved in writing. It also includes Paul Austers impassioned essay A Prayer for Salman Rushdie, as well as a set of striking and bittersweet reminiscences collected under the apposite title, Why Write?

Walt Rawley e un ragazzino senza futuro nell'America degli anni '20. È orfano, vive nelle strade di St. Louis, ma possiede "il dono" e Master Yehudi, un personaggio misterioso, gli promette di insegnargli a volare. L'apprendistato e bizzarro e comprende l'essere seppellito sottoterra per ventiquattr'ore, ma alla fine Walt diventa davvero il "Bambino Prodigio", star di uno spettacolo ambulante di cui Master Yehudi e il regista nascosto. Il bambino volante attraversa la storia di mezzo secolo americano tra incursioni del Ku Klux Klan, storie di gangster, giocatori di baseball e vite bruciate, finendo per aprire a Chicago negli anni '30 un locale clandestino destinato a diventare famoso, il Mr Vertigo.

Seventy-two-year-old August Brill is recovering from a car accident. Plagued by insomnia, he tries to push back thoughts of things he would prefer to forget - his wifes recent death and the horrific murder of his granddaughters boyfriend, Titus - by telling himself stories. He imagines a parallel world in which America is not at war with Iraq but with itself. In this other America the twin towers did not fall, and the 2000 election results led to secession, as state after state pulled away from the union, and a bloody civil war ensued. Brill gradually opens up to his granddaughter, recounting the story of his marriage and confronting the grim reality of Tituss death. Man in the Dark is a novel of our time, a book that forces us to confront the blackness of night whilst also celebrating the existence of ordinary joys in a brutal world.

Seventy-two-year-old August Brill is recovering from a car accident in his daughter''s house in Vermont. When sleep refuses to come, he lies in bed and tells himself stories, struggling to push back thoughts about things he would prefer to forget.

August Brill, an elderly book critic, lies awake in the dark, unable to sleep. Elsewhere in the house are his daughter, Miriam, and granddaughter, Katya, each with her own reasons for lying awake and

A grief-stricken man''s obsession with the mysterious life of a silent film star takes him on a strange and intense journey into a shadow-world of lies, illusions and unexpected love . . . Six months after losing his wife and two young sons in a plane crash, Vermont professor David Zimmer spends his waking hours mired in a blur of alcoholic grief and self-pity. Then, watching television one night, he stumbles upon a lost film by Hector Mann, and finds himself enraptured. Mann was a comic genius of the silent cinema, his trademark a fluttering black moustache. One January morning in 1929, at the height of his fame, he walked out of his house and was never heard from again. Zimmer''s fascination with Mann''s work leads him to write an appreciative book. Then out of nowhere comes a letter from New Mexico, supposedly written by Mann''s wife. Could Hector Mann be still alive? Zimmer is torn between doubt and belief, until a strange woman appears on his doorstep one night and makes the decision for him, changing his life for ever. Written with breathtaking urgency and precision, this stunning novel plunges the reader into a universe in which the comic and the tragic, the real and the imagined, the violent and the tender, dissolve into one another. The Book of Illusions is Paul Auster''s richest, most emotionally charged novel yet.

Three different narrators tell the story of Invisible, a novel that travels in time from 1967 to 2007 and moves from New York to Paris to a remote island in the Caribbean. When twenty-year old Adam Walker, an aspiring poet and student at Columbia University, meets the enigmatic Frenchman, Rudolf Bron, and his silent and seductive girlfriend, Margot, he is unaware of the shocking act of violence that is hidden just around the corner and will alter the whole course of his life. Paul Auster's fifteenth novel is a work of unforgettable power.