The author of 'The Birth of Solitude' has passed away.

Paul Auster, author of the memoir "The Birth of Solitude" and the novel "Music of Life's Chances," died at the age of 77 from complications of lung cancer.

On May 1st, in the Guardian , a friend of Paul Auster – author Jacki Lyden – stated that the writer had passed away the previous day at his home in Brooklyn, New York.

Author Paul Auster. Photo: Guardian — Author Paul Auster. Photo: *Guardian*

In November 2023, in an interview with The Guardian , the author said that while finalizing the manuscript for Baumgartner in late 2022, he often experienced feverish episodes in the late afternoons. Initially, Auster was diagnosed with pneumonia as a complication of Covid-19, but was eventually found to have cancer. "From then on, the treatment never stopped, and I felt utterly useless. I went through a very difficult and harsh time to create something miraculous," the writer said.

Paul Auster is known to readers through his postmodern novels. Many of his stories often have themes of coincidence, chance, and human destiny.

In 2008, critic Michael Dirda wrote: "Auster establishes one of the most distinctive aspects of contemporary literature. His voice is as hypnotic as that of Ancient Mariner. Start reading one of his books, and by the second page, you have no choice but to savor it," Dirda observed.

The author was born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1947. In several articles, Auster stated that his literary career began at the age of eight when he couldn't get an autograph from baseball player Willie Mays because neither Auster nor his parents had a pen with them. From then on, the writer always kept a pencil in his pocket. "If you have a pencil in your pocket, chances are you'll start using it someday," the writer wrote in a 1995 essay.

Auster and his wife, Siri Hustvedt, in their Brooklyn (New York, USA) home in 2020. Photo: Alamy — Auster and his wife, Siri Hustvedt, in their Brooklyn (New York, USA) home in 2020. Photo: *Alamy*

Auster studied at Columbia University before moving to Paris in the early 1970s, where he earned a living translating French literature. There, he lived with his girlfriend, writer Lydia Davis. In 1974, they returned to the United States and married. In 1977, they had a son, Daniel, but separated shortly afterward. He married Siri Hustvedt in 1981, moved to Brooklyn, and had a daughter, Sophie Auster.

In January 1979, the author's father passed away. This event inspired the writer's first memoir, * The Invention of Solitude*, published in 1982. Auster's breakthrough came with the release of *City of Glass * in 1985, the first novel in *The New York Trilogy * . In the book, Paul uses unsolved mysteries to question human identity and existentialism.