A Life in Words: Conversations with I. B. Siegumfeldt

by Paul Auster, I. B. Siegumfeldt

Overview

Paul Auster’s A Life in Words—a wide-ranging dialogue between Auster and the Danish professor I. B. Siegumfeldt—is a remarkably candid and sharply focused investigation into one writer’s art, craft, and life. It includes many revelations that have never been shared before. This is a book that’s full of surprises, composed of spoken words that sometimes jump off the page like good drama.
           
The conversations between Auster and Siegumfeldt went on for three years, starting in 2011 and continuing after there was a complete draft in revisions. All twenty-one of Auster’s narrative works are covered, as well as all the themes and obsessions that drive the work, and the man.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781609807771
Publisher:	Seven Stories Press
Publication date:	10/03/2017
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	558,030
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.60(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

PAUL AUSTER is one of the very few giants of English-language literature who has successfully made the leap from the twentieth to the twenty-first century. A poet and translator before he achieved international prominence as a memoirist and novelist, Auster continues to challenge and dazzle his readers in America and around the world. His most recent novel is 4 3 2 1.

I. B. SIEGUMFELDT is an associate professor of English, Germanic, and Romance Studies at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark and the driving force behind the university's forthcoming Paul Auster Center.

Hometown:

Brooklyn, New York

Date of Birth:

February 3, 1947

Place of Birth:

Newark, New Jersey

Education:

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

Table of Contents

Preface vii

Prologue: Clearing the Air xiii

Part 1 Autobiographical Writings

The Invention of Solitude. (1982) "Everything Comes from Within and Moves Out" 3

"Portrait of an Invisible Man." The Spectrum of a Human Being 6

"The Book of Memory." Language and the Body 20

Hand to Mouth: A Chronicle of Early Failure. (1997) "Permanently Penniless" 35

The Red Notebook. (2002) Ars Poetica 45

Winter Journal. (2012) Memory and the Body 53

Report from the Interior. (2013) Becoming Human 65

Part 2 Hovels

The New York Trilogy. (1985-6) "Learning to Live with Ambiguity" 85

City of Glass. The Name and the Named 93

Ghosts. A Fable of Representation 104

The Locked Room. The Self-Destructive Text 107

In the Country of Last Things. (1987) Ephemerality 113

Moon Palace. (1989) "The Song Is in the Step" 127

The Music of Chance. (1990) "The Mechanics of Reality" 143

Leviathan. (1992) The Fall 163

Mr. Vertigo. (1994) Levitating 179

Timbuktu. (1999) "The Pure Pleasure of Language" 191

The Book of Illusions. (2002) From Page to Picture 203

Oracle Night. (2003) "The World Is in My Head" 215

The Brooklyn Follies. (2005) "An Escape from American Reality" 229

Travels in the Scriptorium. (2006) One Dark Day of Amnesia: "The Writer Rewritten" 241

Man in the Dark. (2008) One White Night of Insomnia: Confronting One's Past 257

Invisible. (2009) Three Seasons and an Epilogue 269

Sunset Park. (2010) Broken Things 287

Complete List of Works Paul Auster 305

Bibliography 309

Index 313

Editorial Reviews

"I believe this is a very important book for people who want to know what it means to be a writer." —Barry Gifford

“The most distinguished American writer of [his] generation . . . indeed its only author . . . with any claim to greatness.” –The Spectator (UK)

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

"Nabokov once said 'I divide literature into two categories, the books I wish I had written, and the books I have written.' In the former category I would put books by Kurt Vonnegut, Don DeLillo, Philip Roth, and Paul Auster." —Umberto Eco (in the Paris Review)

From the Publisher