Internationally recognized author of the New York trilogy, he was for the French the great American writer par excellence, who led by his art of narrative and intrigue a deep reflection on the contradictions, contingencies and coincidences of existence. Mr. Paul AUSTER passed away on April 30, 2024, at the age of 77.
Born as his 14-year-old, writer Philip Roth, in Newark, to a Jewish family from Eastern Europe, Mr. Paul AUSTER entered literature in the early 1980s, following the death of his father, with The Invention of Loneliness (1982). This was followed by dozens of books, essays, autobiographical texts, and even a play and film scripts, some of which they had made in person.
But it was above all through his novel work that M. Paul AUSTER had established himself as a major figure in literature, translated and read worldwide, with titles such as Glass city (1985), Revenants (1986) and The Stolen Chamber (1986), which form its famous New York trilogy, or his work-sum 4 3 2 1, published in 2017. In his novels, written in a clear and bright language and set in New York and the Brooklyn neighborhood, he plays with the codes of investigation and detective novel to deploy characters often strange and meandering destinies.
Francophile and a connoisseur of French literature and culture, Mr. Paul AUSTER had lived in Paris for four years in the early 1970s, where he had frequented the poetic scene of the time, linking with poets such as Jacques Dupin or André Du Bouchet, of which he translated some works into English. France, which he considered his «second country», had enthusiastically welcomed his work. He had received the Foreign Medici Prize in 1993 for Leviathan. His latest book, Baumgartner, was published in March by Actes Sud, its publisher in France for decades.
I extend my condolences to his wife, Ms Siri HUSTVEDT, his children, his family and his loved ones. I associate myself with the sorrow felt today by the many admirers of the work of Mr. Paul AUSTER.
Rachida DATI,
Minister of Culture