Prolific US novelist Paul Auster dies aged 77
American author Paul Auster who made his name with noirish, existentialist novels about lonely writers, outsiders and down-and-outers that were a huge hit in Europe particularly, has died aged 77.
He died on Tuesday evening at his home in Brooklyn surrounded by family, including his wife Siri Hustvedt and daughter Sophie Auster, his friend and fellow author Jacki Lyden said in a statement sent to AFP.
The author with the soulful, sunken eyes gained cult status in the 1980s and 1990s with his “New York Trilogy” of metaphysical mysteries and his hip film “Smoke”, about the lost souls who patronise a Brooklyn tobacco shop.
American author Paul Auster who made his name with noirish, existentialist novels about lonely writers, outsiders and down-and-outers that were a huge hit in Europe particularly, has died aged 77.
He died on Tuesday evening at his home in Brooklyn surrounded by family, including his wife Siri Hustvedt and daughter Sophie Auster, his friend and fellow author Jacki Lyden said in a statement sent to AFP.
The author with the soulful, sunken eyes gained cult status in the 1980s and 1990s with his “New York Trilogy” of metaphysical mysteries and his hip film “Smoke”, about the lost souls who patronise a Brooklyn tobacco shop.
In March 2023, his wife, fellow author Hustvedt, announced he had been diagnosed with cancer. American media said he died of complications from lung cancer.
Auster’s work straddles the divide between the middlebrow and the highbrow.
His more than 30 books are as likely to be found in airports as on university reading lists and have been translated into more than 40 languages.
In later years his life was marred by tragedy, with his 10-month-old granddaughter dying after ingesting heroin and his son Daniel, the child’s father, dying of an overdose 10 months later.
