An inside look into Paul Auster's art and craft, the inspirations and obsessions, mesmerizing and dramatic in turn.
A remarkably candid, and often surprisingly dramatic, investigation into one writer's art, craft, and life, A Life in Words is rooted in three years of dialogue between Auster and Professor I. B. Siegumfeldt, starting in 2011, while Siegumfeldt was in the process of launching the Center for Paul Auster Studies at the University of Copenhagen. It includes a number of surprising disclosures, both concerning Auster's work and about the art of writing generally. It is a book that's full of surprises, unscripted yet amounting to a sharply focused portrait of the inner workings of one of America's most productive and successful writers, through all twenty-one of Auster's narrative works and the themes and obsessions that drive them.
"I believe this is a very important book for people who want to know what it means to be a writer." —Barry Gifford
“The most distinguished American writer of [his] generation . . . indeed its only author . . . with any claim to greatness.” –The Spectator (UK)
“One of the great writers of our time.”–San Francisco Chronicle
"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)
An inside look into Paul Auster's art and craft, the inspirations and obsessions, mesmerizing and dramatic in turn.
A remarkably candid, and often surprisingly dramatic, investigation into one writer's art, craft, and life, A Life in Words is rooted in three years of dialogue between Auster and Professor I. B. Siegumfeldt, starting in 2011, while Siegumfeldt was in the process of launching the Center for Paul Auster Studies at the University of Copenhagen. It includes a number of surprising disclosures, both concerning Auster's work and about the art of writing generally. It is a book that's full of surprises, unscripted yet amounting to a sharply focused portrait of the inner workings of one of America's most productive and successful writers, through all twenty-one of Auster's narrative works and the themes and obsessions that drive them.
Praise
"I believe this is a very important book for people who want to know what it means to be a writer." —Barry Gifford
“The most distinguished American writer of [his] generation . . . indeed its only author . . . with any claim to greatness.” –The Spectator (UK)
“One of the great writers of our time.”–San Francisco Chronicle
"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)
