A Tomb for Anatole presents the poignant fragments of Stéphane Mallarmé's unfinished poem, reflecting his deep sorrow after the death of his son. This work, unpublished until 1961, diverges from Mallarmé's typical style, revealing raw emotions and the struggle with modern death without hope. Paul Auster highlights its profound impact.
During the 20th Century, France was home to many of the world’s greatest poets. This collection highlights some of the very best verse that came out of a country and century defined by war and liberation. Let Paul Auster guide you through some of the best poetry that 20th century France has to offer. “Indispensable . . . a book that everyone interested in modern poetry should have close to hand, a source of renewable delights and discoveries, a book that will long claim our attention . . . To my knowledge, no current anthology is as full and as deftly edited.”—Peter Brooks, The New York Times Book Review “One of the freshest and most exciting books of poetry to appear in a long while . . . Paul Auster has provided the best possible point of entry into this century's most influential body of poetry.”—Geoffrey O'Brien, The Village Voice
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. 'Paul Auster is one of those sages with confounding talent - confounding for one because he's simply that good .
This updated nonfiction collection features significant works by Paul Auster, including his influential piece, The Invention of Solitude. Auster, a Man Booker Prize finalist, delves into themes of solitude, identity, and the human experience, offering profound insights and reflections. The collection showcases his unique narrative style and philosophical depth, making it a compelling read for those interested in contemporary thought and personal exploration.
Paul Auster's novels have earned him the reputation as 'one of America's most spectacularly inventive writers.' He has also brought this sense of invention to the art of screenwriting, producing Smoke, Blue in the Face, Lulu on the Bridge and The Inner Life of Martin Frost. Smoke tells the story of a novelist, a cigar store manager and a black teenager who unexpectedly cross paths. Blue in the Face is a largely improvised comedy directly inspired by Smoke. In Lulu on the Bridge, jazz musician Izzy Maurer is accidently hit with a bullet during a performance in a New York club, propelling him on a strange and frightening journey. The Inner Life of Martin Frost follows the unsettling experiences that befall a writer who borrows a friend's country house. The volume also contains production notes, as well as interviews with Paul Auster about his work in film.
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 .
Joe Brainard's I Remember is a literary and artistic cult classic, praised and admired by writers from Paul Auster to John Ashery and Edmund White. As autobiography, Brainard's method was brilliantly simple: to set down specific memories as they rose to the surface of his consciousness, each prefaced by the refrain "I remember": "I remember when I thought that if you did anything bad, policemen would put you in jail." Brainard's enduring gem of a book has been issued in various forms over the past thirty years. In 1970, Angel Hair books published the first edition of I Remember, which quickly sold out; he wrote two subsequent volumes for Angel Hair, More I Remember (1972) and More I Remember More (1973), both of which proved as popular as the original. In 1973, the Museum of Modern Art in New York published Brainard's I Remember Christmas, a new text for which he also contributed a cover design and four drawings. Excerpts from the Angel Hair editions appeared in Interview, Gay Sunshine, The World and the New York Herald. Then in 1975, Full Court Press issued a revised version collecting all three of the Angel Hair volumes and added new material, using the original title I Remember. This complete edition is prefaced by poet and translator Ron Padgett.
I believe this is a very important book for people who want to know what it means to be a writer. -Barry Gifford Nabokov once said 'I divide literature into two categories, the books I wish I had written, and the books I have written.' In the former category I would put books by Kurt Vonnegut, Don DeLillo, Philip Roth, and Paul Auster. --Umberto Eco (in the Paris Review)
'Exhilarating.' Joyce Carol Oates, Times Literary Supplement Books of the Year'Sharp-eyed and revealing.' The New Yorker'Brilliant .
Baumgartner's life has been defined by his deep, abiding love for his wife, Anna. But now Anna is gone, and Baumgartner is embarking on his seventies whilst trying to live with her absence. Rich with compassion, wit and Auster's keen eye for beauty in the smallest, most transient episodes of ordinary life, 'Baumgartner' is a tender late masterpiece of the ache of memory. It asks: why do we find such meaning in certain moments, and forget others?
