Paul Auster

Författaren Sidney Orr håller på att återhämta sig från en allvarlig sjukdom när han i en pappersvarubutik i Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, finner en blå, portugisisk anteckningsbok som han inte kan motstå att inhandla. Det är den 18 september 1982 och de närmaste nio dagarna kommer Orr att trollbindas av denna oskrivna bok, fångad inuti en värld av kusliga förutsägelser och förbryllande händelser som hotar att spräcka hans äktenskap och underminera hans tilltro till verkligheten. Varför bryter hans fru ihop i baksätet på en taxi bara timmarna efter att han börjat skriva i sin anteckningsbok? Varför är butiken där han inhandlat anteckningsboken plötsligt utrymd dagen därpå? Vilka är kopplingarna mellan en telefonkatalog från Warszawa anno 1938 och en försvunnen roman där huvudpersonen kan se in i framtiden? När exploderar förbittringen och övergår i våld? I vilken utsträckning är förlåtelse det yttersta uttrycket för kärlek? Paul Austers elfte roman är lika mycket en fascinerande meditation över tidens natur som en vindlande resa genom en mans labyrintartade föreställningsförmåga. Romanen befäster på ett självklart sätt Austers framskjutna ställning bland nutida amerikanska berättare.

Nathan Glass har levt ett alldagligt lagom enstörigt liv som försäkringsman. När han med några år kvar till sextio drabbas av cancer förändras tillvaron. Med sjukdomen tillfälligt besegrad flyttar han från landsorten in till Brooklyn. Där springer han på sin brorson Tom Wood som han inte har sett på nästan tio år. Tom som var en lovande akademiker har förvandlats till en överviktig loser och tillsammans med bokhandlaren Harry Brightman bildar de en ovanlig trojka. De tre har sina egna sorger och tillkortakommanden att tampas med, men vänskapen gör livet lite enklare att leva. Det hela tar ännu en ny riktning när Toms försvunna syster Auroras dotter, Lucy, oväntat dyker upp. Lucy vägrar dessutom att tala. Flickans envetna stumhet gör efterforskningarna besvärliga men Tom och Nathan fruktar för Auroras liv, några veckor senare får de ett telefonsamtal där Aurora med panik i rösten ber dem kontakta henne, det är bara det att hon inte hinner uppge var hon befinner sig innan samtalet bryts. Dårskaper i Brooklyn är en charmig roman i typisk Paul Auster-anda där slumpartade möten får oanade konsekvenser och allt kan hända i de till synes mest vardagliga människornas liv.

Mr Blank sitter i ett spartanskt litet rum. Varje dag byter han om från sin blå- och gulrandiga pyjamas till vita byxor, vit skjorta, vita tennisskor, som om han gör sig redo för något. Han vet inte vad som finns utanför dörren eller det igenbommade fönstret. Befinner han sig i en kloster- eller fängelsecell, eller i ett väntrum på väg till den andra sidan? Är det dröm eller verklighet? I det lilla rummet finns ett antal föremål som alla har etiketterats med vita tejpremsor med ett ord skrivet på dem och på skrivbordet ligger en rapport som mr Blank läser i. Under dagen kliver människor in till honom, personer som han vagt känner igen, men hur han än försöker kan han inte minnas sitt förflutna mer än glimtvis. Resor i skriptoriet är en parabel över en författare i skrivarvånda, men också en skarp metafor för USA idag liksom en hyllningsbok till hängivna Austerfans; mr Blanks besökare är även för läsaren välbekanta figurer ur det förflutna.

'In the beginning, everything was alive. The smallest objects were endowed with beating hearts . . .'Having recalled his life through the story of his physical self in Winter Journal, internationally best-selling novelist Paul Auster now remembers the experience of his development from within, through the encounters of his interior self with the outer world, as well as through a selection of the revealing letters he sent to his first wife, acclaimed author Lydia Davis. An impressionistic portrait of a writer coming of age, Report from the Interior moves from Auster's baby's-eye view of the man in the moon to his childhood worship of the movie cowboy Buster Crabbe to the composition of his first poem at the age of nine to his dawning awareness of the injustices of American life. Report from the Interior charts Auster's moral, political and intellectual journey as he inches his way toward adulthood through the post-war fifties and into the turbulent 1960s. Paul Auster evokes the sounds, smells, and tactile sensations that marked his early life - and the many images that came at him, including moving images (he adored cartoons, he was in love with films), until, at its unique climax, the book breaks away from prose into pure imagery: the final section of Report from the Interior recapitulates the first three parts, told in an album of pictures. At once a story of the times and the story of the emerging consciousness of a renowned literary artist, this four-part work answers the challenge of autobiography in ways rarely, if ever, seen before.

Having recalled his life through the story of his physical self in Winter Journal, internationally acclaimed novelist Paul Auster remembers the experience of his development from within through the encounters of his interior self with the outer world in Report from the Interior. In the beginning, everything was alive. The smallest objects were endowed with beating hearts . . . From his baby's-eye view of the man in the moon, to his childhood worship of the movie cowboy Buster Crabbe, to the composition of his first poem at the age of nine, to his dawning awareness of the injustices of American life, Report from the Interior charts Auster's moral, political, and intellectual journey as he inches his way toward adulthood through the postwar 1950s and into the turbulent 1960s. Auster evokes the sounds, smells, and tactile sensations that marked his early life--and the many images that came at him, including moving images (he adored cartoons, he was in love with films), until, at its unique climax, the book breaks away from prose into pure imagery: The final section of Report from the Interior recapitulates the first three parts, told in an album of pictures. At once a story of the times--which makes it everyone's story--and the story of the emerging consciousness of a renowned literary artist, this four-part work answers the challenge of autobiography in ways rarely, if ever, seen before.

" A] civilized discourse between two cultivated and sophisticated men. . . . It's a pleasure to be in their company."--Michael Dirda, The Washington Post"An extended meditation on the processes of friendship, Here and Now] has something substantive to offer."--The New York Times Book Review After a meeting at an Australian literary festival brought them together in 2008, novelists Paul Auster and J. M. Coetzee began exchanging letters on a regular basis with the hope they might "strike sparks off each other." Here and Now is the result: a three-year epistolary dialogue that touches on nearly every subject from sports to fatherhood, literature to film, philosophy to politics, from the financial crisis to art, death, marriage, friendship, and love. Their high-spirited and luminous correspondence offers an intimate and often amusing portrait of these two men as they explore the complexities of the here and now and reveal their delight in each other's friendship on every page.

For the first time in one volume, two existential classics by internationally bestselling novelist Paul Auster. Day/Night brings together two metaphysical novels that mirror each other and are meant to be read in tandem: two men, each confined to a room, one suddenly alert to his existence, the other desperate to escape into sleep. In Travels in the Scriptorium, elderly Mr. Blank wakes in an unfamiliar cell, with no memory of who he is or how he got there. He must use the few objects he finds and the information imparted by the day's string of visitors to cobble together an idea of his identity. In Man in the Dark, another old man, August Brill, suffering from insomnia, struggles to push away thoughts of painful personal losses by imagining what might have been. Who are we? What is real and not real? How does the political intersect with the personal? After great loss, why are some of us unable to go on? "One of America's greats" (Time Out - Chicago) and "a descendant of Kafka and Borges," (Booklist) Auster explores in these two small masterpieces some of our most pressing philosophical concerns.

'You think it will never happen to you, that it cannot happen to you, that you are the only person world to whom none of these things will ever happen, and then, one by one, they all begin to happen to you, in the same way they happen to everyone else.'In Winter Journal, Paul Auster moves through the events of his life in a series of memories grasped from the point of view of his life now: playing baseball as a teenager; participating in the anti-Vietnam demonstrations at Columbia University; seeking out prostitutes in Paris, almost killing his second wife and child in a car accident; falling in and out of live with his first wife; the 'scalding, epiphanic moment of clarity' in 1978 that set him on a new course as a writer. Winter Journal is a poignant memoir of ageing and memory, written with all the characteristic subtlety, imagination and insight that readers of Paul Auster have come to cherish.'An examination of the emotions of a man growing old . . . this book has much to recommend it, and Auster is unsparingly honest about himself.' Financial Times

As autobiography, Brainard's method was brilliantly simple: to set down specific memories ('everything is interesting, sooner or later') as they rose to the surface of his consciousness, each prefaced by the refrain 'I remember.'

De to forfattere Paul Auster (USA) og J. M. Coetzee (Sydafrika) mødtes ved et litterært arrangement i Australien og har hen over tre år ført en brevveksling på tværs af kontinenter. Det er blevet til en særdeles indholdsrig 'samtale' spækket med interessante synspunkter omkring valg af livsform, nødvendigheden af at skrive, kærlighedens og venskabets natur, hvad god litteratur kan . Brevvekslingen giver et vigtigt indblik i de to vægtige forfatteres måde at tænke og skrive på.

'One day there is life . . . And then, suddenly, it happens there is death.'So begins Paul Auster's moving and personal meditation on fatherhood, The Invention of Solitude. The first section, 'Portrait of an Invisible Man', reveals Auster's memories and feelings after the death of his father. In 'The Book of Memory' the perspective shifts to Auster's role as a father. The narrator, 'A.', contemplates his separation from his son, his dying grandfather and the solitary nature of writing and story-telling. With all the keen literary intelligence familiar from The New York Trilogy or Sunset Park, Paul Auster crafts an intensely intimate work from a ground-breaking combination of introspection, meditation and biography.

Finanskrisen har tatt nakkegrep på USA, og mange tvinges til å forlate hjemmene sine i hui og hast. 28 år gamle Miles Heller jobber i Florida med å tømme disse husene, mens han i smug fotograferer kaoset av etterlatte eiendeler. Han lever i sin egen verden, uten kontakt med familien, helt til han en dag møter vakre, pur unge Pilar i en park ... I Brooklyn, nærmere bestemt i Sunset Park, har tre unge mennesker okkupert et kondemnert hus. Bing Nathan har tatt initiativet til kollektivet, og Bings glede er stor når han greier å lokke sin gamle venn Miles tilbake til gamle tomter. "Sunset Park" er en kollektivroman med uforglemmelige personer, full av austersk vidd, varme og humor.

Sunset Park er det kvarter i Brooklyn, New York, hvor den unge karismatiske Miles Heller slår sig ned i et besat hus sammen med tre jævnaldrende, mens han venter på at hans mindreårige kæreste Pilar bliver gammel nok til at følge efter ham fra Florida - uden at hendes familie kan anklage ham eller forhindre hende i at gøre det. Husets samling af misfits tæller den uformelle leder Bing Nathan, der kører Hospitalet for ødelagte ting, den melankolske kunstner Ellen, og den specialestuderende Alice. Også Miles far, forlæggeren Morris Heller som forsøger at redde både sit synkende forlag og ditto ægteskab, får stemme i romanen. Hjemsøgt af skyldfølelse efter sin stedbrors død har Miles ikke haft kontakt med sin far eller stedmor i de seneste syv år. Hver sårede, søgende karakters historie understreger vores behov for mellemmenneskelige bånd, sammenhæng og skønhed. På romanens baggrund af den økonomiske kollaps i 2008 minder Paul Auster os om alt det varige: kærligheden, kunsten og livets mirakuløse forviklinger. Sunset Park er med sit ensemble af unge stemmer ikke en typisk Auster-roman, men en positiv overraskelse som cementerer Paul Auster som en af de vigtigste nulevende amerikanske forfattere.

Paul Auster er indtrådt i sit livs vinter. 64 år gammel ser han tilbage på sit liv, dets op- og nedture, lykketræf og uheld. Som i Opfindelsen af ensomhed er det materiale fra Paul Austers eget liv der flyder fra siderne. En bog for alle Auster-fans samt læsere af erindringer, om end denne er ukronologisk og har et stærkt litterært udtryk.