Pol Oster

Paul Auster (full name — Paul Benjamin Auster) is an American novelist, poet, essayist, and translator. As critics have written, “although his prose clearly shows the influence of such American writers as Poe, Hawthorne, and Melville, he was also influenced by many others, from Montaigne and Pascal to Wittgenstein, Merleau-Ponty, and Beckett.” Most of his novels are written at the intersection of intellectual mainstream fiction, detective fiction, and magical realism. His wife is Siri Hustvedt.

He was born on February 3, 1947, in Newark, New Jersey. His father, Samuel Auster, owned several houses in Jersey City. His mother, Queenie Auster, was thirteen years younger than her husband. The family belonged to the middle class and lived not very happily (or rather, very unhappily). Paul’s childhood was spent in the suburbs of Newark — South Orange and Maplewood. In 1959, his parents bought a mansion in an affluent neighborhood of the city. Paul’s uncle, the translator Allen Mandelbaum, left several boxes of books in their house while traveling through Europe. It was then that the young Auster developed an interest in reading and enthusiastically set about studying the contents of these boxes. Later, his uncle became Paul’s first teacher and critic when he began writing poetry. Auster attended high school in Maplewood, about 20 miles south of New York City. In summer he worked as a waiter, and later worked in a small store belonging to another of his uncles, Moe, in Westfield, New Jersey. In the year when Paul was supposed to finish school, his parents divorced. He moved with his mother and younger sister to an apartment in Newark’s Vailsburg neighborhood. After finishing school, Auster went on a trip through Europe, visiting Italy, Spain, Paris, and Dublin (in homage to James Joyce). During the trip he tried writing a novel. After returning to the United States, Paul entered Columbia University. There he studied English literature and comparative literature. While at university, he discovered French poetry. In 1970 he graduated from Columbia University with a Master of Arts degree. He spent a year working as a sailor on an oil tanker. From 1971 to 1974 he lived in France, two years in Paris and one in Provence. He translated