The death of Paul Auster, who died of lung cancer on Tuesday night at the age of 77 at his home in New York, caused grief and consternation in the republic of letters and the cultural sphere on a global scale.
After the news was made public, revealed from the first moments by her colleague and friend Jacki Lyden to the New York press and confirmed yesterday by her literary representative, the Carol Mann Agency, the messages of condolences and expressions of affection on social networks began to multiply.
It was a growing trend that was maintained yesterday by writers, intellectuals, artists of various disciplines, publishers, cultural and educational institutions, as well as among their thousands of readers and admirers.
Something similar occurred in the main news media and newspapers of the world, where obituaries, opinion articles, analyzes and obituaries related to the acclaimed American author, one of the most important and renowned exponents of contemporary world literature, proliferated.
A literary voice for all times
headed The Guardian to inform about the death of this distinguished author critically acclaimed
in addition to recording a series of opinions regarding his work among renowned American and European writers, among them the British narrator and screenwriter Ian MacEwan and the American writer Joyce Carol Oates, whose name appears recurrently among the candidates for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
For the latter, according to the aforementioned British newspaper, Paul Auster He was an anomaly: a completely warm, witty, understanding and laughter-loving individual, with an insatiable intellectual curiosity and a gift for friendship; At the same time, he was a monumental literary presence, somewhat intimidating in the zeal with which he immersed himself in his writings, almost overwhelming in the abundance of his creative energies.
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Meanwhile, MacEwan highlighted that the skillful self-consciousness of his writings made him our supreme postmodernist. If his imagination seemed so broad it was because he was as much a European as an American writer. If he had Thoreau at his back, he also had Beckett. It is possible to cross Paul Auster Platz and walk along rue Paul Auster. Not many novelists have been so honored. As a presence, he was ridiculously handsome, worldly, generous, funny and, unlike most great conversationalists, a very attentive listener.
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The New York Times reported the death, calling Auster a patron saint of Brooklyn
while in France The world, After breaking the news, he defined it as a master in the art of storytelling
that became famous with its New York stories populated by marginal and disoriented characters
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In our country, the Guadalajara International Book Fair (FIL), the most important book event in the world in the Spanish language, mourned the loss and expressed its condolences. The National Autonomous University of Mexico did the same.
Until the closing of this edition, no details about the funeral or other details had been released. The essayist and poet Siri Hustvedt, his wife of more than 40 years, had also not issued a statement or published anything on her social networks, specifically on Instagram, where on April 11, 2023 she reported the cancer that the writer suffered, and in subsequent months He shared messages about his treatment and state of health, as well as a series of reflections on the matter.
Poet, critic, novelist, essayist, screenwriter, filmmaker and author of 34 books, Paul Auster only had to move from France to New York, the city that was his home until his last day, for publishing success to knock on his door.
Newark, New Jersey, saw him born in 1947 into a Jewish family of Polish origin that found refuge in the United States from the threat of Nazism. Many years later, in Brooklyn, New York, his first hit was born: Crystal Cityin 1986.
The New York Trilogy (1987), his compilation of novels of experimental stories by detectives and writers, was the one that catapulted his name after publishing his first novel, pressure play (1976), which, in addition to not having had great success, was published under the pseudonym Paul Benjamin.
His work was steeped in existentialism, the self and, above all, chance in novels such as moon, S Palace (1989), Leviatjudgment (1992), Timbuktu (1999), The book of illusions (2002) y The invention of lonelinesspublished in 1982 (inspired by the death of his father).
Last November the English version of his most recent novel appearedBaumgartnerand tender and miraculous book
, according to Siri Husvedt, written by the author while receiving his chemotherapy treatment. The Spanish translation began to circulate at the end of February in Spain and has been available in Mexico since the beginning of April.