US novelist Paul Auster dies at 77 • FRANCE 24 English

US novelist Paul Auster dies at 77 • FRANCE 24 English

now he is The Man Behind the New York
Trilogy as well as a string of others
noirish existentialist novels about
lonely writers Outsiders and down and
outters that have been a huge hit
notably across Europe now though Paul
AER the prolific American novelist has
died of complications from lung cancer
at the age of 77 surrounded by his
family his more than 30 books in all
have been translated would you believe
into more than 40 different languages
one big reader is France 24 is Oliver
Ferry and he’s joining me here on set
once again Oliver this is the loss isn’t
it of a real literary giant yeah it’s
very much a cliche to say it but Paul
austro was um one of a kind and not so
much uh because of what he wrote there
are plenty of more experimentally
inclined writers in the US but he was
probably the only one or one of the very
few that actually managed to make
bestsellers out of us and of course you
mentioned there the New York Trilogy the
1989 novel which was the one that really
propelled
into the international Limelight um he
was probably not quite as decorated as
other writers that of his old generation
or like his uh fellow native of New York
New New Jersey uh Philip Roth uh ustar
was often uh the the bridesma rather
than the bride in international Awards
he did with the pen Faulkner award in
1991 for his novel The the music of
chance his his novels were as I said
slightly experimental they um they
tended to focus on things that an awful
lot of American Writers weren’t really
looking at very inflected by European
fiction uh with good reason because he
started off as a translator from French
uh in his old life he was also a screen
writer and a filmmaker he made three
films they weren’t quite up to the
standard of his books it has to be said
he also in recent times he was hit by
tragedy he lost his son to a drug
overdose in uh 2022 just 10 days after
uh um his granddaughter the the do the
infant child of that son had died
accidentally of H from consuming fenal
and heroin uh Dash the sun was using and
what’s fascinating about him as well I
mean of course he’s well known in the US
he’s well known in the UK other Anglo
countries but he’s so well known isn’t
he across Europe and here in France as
well that’s right and um It’s Not
Unusual for American Writers to be more
popular in France than in the US but
Paul oser was rare in that he was he’s
one of the few American Writers who
could actually speak to the French in
their own language he was a fluent
French speaker I I saw him speak uh
about 12 13 years ago to an audience of
about 500 people in Paris he spoke
excellent French completely bastard it
for you know any any type of
intellectual discourse as I said he
started off translating French
literature when he lived in Paris in the
1980s his then wife Lydia Davis is also
a an acclaimed American writer and uh
translator from the French to the French
loved them uh right now if you walk in
Paris on the Metro or in the streets you
will see advertisements for his last
novel bom Gartner which has just been
translated into French um he was also
given made a commander of the order of
arts and letters which is France’s
highest decoration for uh um for uh
cultural figures so um as I said he’s
somebody that uh the French loved back
uh very very much for the fact that he
was able to speak their langu but of
course they appreciated his his novels
too which ironically started off very
much inflected and influenced by the
French literature that he grew up
reading himself well thanks very much
from4 all it’s been fascinating to see
the reaction up in the news

Paul Auster, the prolific American novelist whose works included “The New York Trilogy,” has died at the age of 77 of complications from lung cancer.

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