Baumgartner (Italian Edition)

by Paul Auster, Cristiana Mennella (Translator)

Overview

Baumgartner es un eminente escritor y profesor universitario, tan excéntrico como increíblemente tierno, que hace nueve años perdió a su mujer. Su vida estuvo definida por el amor profundo y duradero que sentía hacia Anna y ahora, con 71 años, continúa luchando por vivir en su ausencia. Su historia común arranca en 1968, cuando se conocen como estudiantes sin dinero en Nueva York y a pesar de ser casi opuestos en muchos aspectos, inician una apasionada relación que se prolongará a lo largo de cuarenta años. La superación del duelo por la pérdida de Anna se intercala con historias maravillosas -desde su juventud en Newark hasta la vida de revolucionario fracasado de su padre en Europa del Este- y con una poderosa reflexión acerca del modo en que amamos en distintas etapas de la vida. El esperado regreso a la novela de Paul Auster, que acompaña al inolvidable profesor Baumgartner en el viaje por los recuerdos de toda una vida.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9788858444016
Publisher:	EINAUDI
Publication date:	11/21/2023
Sold by:	GIULIO EINAUDI EDITORE - EBKS
Format:	eBook
File size:	518 KB
Language:	Italian

About the Author

Paul Auster is the bestselling author of 4 3 2 1, Sunset Park, The Book of Illusions, Moon Palace, and The New York Trilogy, among many other works. In 2006, he was awarded the Prince of Asturias Prize for Literature. His other honors include the Prix Médicis étranger for Leviathan, the Independent Spirit Award for the screenplay of Smoke, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Burning Boy, and the Carlos Fuentes Prize for his body of work. His most recent novel, 4 3 2 1, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and is a Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. His work has been translated into more than forty languages. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Hometown:

Brooklyn, New York

Date of Birth:

February 3, 1947

Place of Birth:

Newark, New Jersey

Education:

B.A., M.A., Columbia University, 1970

Editorial Reviews

Praise for Baumgartner:

“Baumgartner’s mind is full of late-life insights and angst, while his capacity for love provides a rich emotional seam. Auster packs a lot into this slim novel… An always intriguing writer.” – Kirkus

“The subject of lost loved ones and all that follows in the wake of such a loss is hardly unusual in contemporary literature, but Paul Auster's Baumgartner is a worthy addition to the body of fiction that treats the subject. It's a well-drawn portrait of a man wrestling with grief, and a sensitive character study that displays many of the qualities for which Auster's been lauded in a long literary career… Baumgartner's story is revealed in episodic fashion and with precise, observant, and sometimes touching detail… Poignant.” – Shelf Awareness

“Auster presents his eighteenth novel, a finely distilled tale of a charmingly self-deprecating and forthright intellectual and romantic… Auster's portrait of a thoughtful man embracing loss and love is a gorgeous, subtly suspenseful revelation of the covert dramas of a contemplative, kind, and expressive life.” — Donna Seaman, Booklist (starred review)

Praise for Paul Auster:

“One of the great American prose stylists of our time.” —New York Times

“Auster really does possess the wand of the enchanter.” —New York Review of Books

“One of the great writers of our time.” —San Francisco Chronicle

“Contemporary American writing at its best.” —New York Times Book Review, on Invisible

“A literary original who is perfecting a hybrid genre of his own.” —Wall Street Journal

From the Publisher

2023-07-26
An elderly philosophy professor sorts through grief, mortality, and late love.

Raised by a mother surnamed Auster in Newark, New Jersey, educated at Columbia University and in Paris, married to a translator—for the title character of his latest, Auster dips often into the autobiographical well. As the book opens, S.T. Baumgartner, age 70, has been mourning his late wife, Anna, for 10 years when mishaps darken an otherwise ordinary day. He has a nasty fall, he learns that his cleaning lady’s husband has severed two fingers in a work accident, and he burns a pot he’s had since he first met his wife. Auster likes to stir up apprehension, but none of these misfortunes can match the frisson when a disconnected phone in his late wife’s study impossibly brings a call from her, telling him about the afterlife and how they remain connected. As Baumgartner, amid typical worries about how much future he has, frequently revisits the past, the narrative of his falling for Anna and their marriage takes shape—yet the strange phone call also frees him to enjoy love again, with a colleague at Princeton. Then another woman appears and seems to promise a different sort of emotional investment, this one tied to his late wife. Auster is not as textually tricky here as he has been in previous novels. He does bring back publisher Morris Heller and son Miles from Sunset Park (2010). He has Baumgartner working on “a serio-comic, quasi-fictional discourse on the self in relation to other selves,” which sounds like a study of Auster’s fiction. Baumgartner’s mind is full of late-life insights and angst, while his capacity for love provides a rich emotional seam. Auster packs a lot into this slim novel, including, alas, prose so prone to cliché that the mind winces.

An always intriguing writer mostly playing to his strengths.

Kirkus Reviews