Paul Auster is the author of Invisible, Man in the Dark, The Brooklyn Follies, Oracle Night and
the New York Trilogy. He also edited I
Thought My Father Was God, the NPR
National Story Project anthology.
His work has been translated into 35 languages. Auster lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.,
and his most recent novel, Sunset Park,
was published on November 9, 2010 (Frances Coady/Henry Holt).
On your nightstand now:
With the Old Breed by E.B. Sledge. And the essays of Montaigne.
Favorite book when you were a child:
The Chip Hilton sports books, written by Claire Bee--now forgotten by everyone, I would imagine.
Your top five authors:
Shakespeare, Cervantes, Dickens, Dostoyevsky and Kafka.
Book you're an evangelist for:
The stories of Heinrich von Kleist.
Book you've bought for the cover:
Believe it or not, I have never done that.
Book that changed your life:
Crime and Punishment.
Favorite line from a book:
"I write for those on whom the black ox hath trod."--Fulke Greville, Elizabethan poet
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
Molloy by Samuel Beckett.
Listen to Paul Auster read an excerpt from Sunset Park, beginning with the first chapter, here.