News (Early 2003)

Peter Wild kindly e-mailed to say that in October 2003 "Faber in the UK are publishing a Selected Prose by Paul Auster". I'll post more information as it comes in.

Michelle Ellis kindly e-mailed me to say "i'm going to this lecture paul auster is giving at the french institute in a few weeks and i thought i'd let you know about it for your site." She also sent me the following link.

On Thursday 15th May 2003 at 7pm Paul Auster will be doing a lecture on Joseph Joubert at the French Institute Alliance Francaise, New York City. Tickets are 15$ and 20$, see the link above for details.

I've just received some exciting news about Paul Auster's next novel from Nicholas Taylor. It reads:

"Last night, (Thursday 10th April 2003), I attended a reading by Paul Auster at NYU’s Lipton Hall in Greenwich Village. Surprisingly, he read the first 20 pages from what he said was his next novel, called Oracle of Night. It was absolutely wonderful. A story of a man who was supposed to die of a debilitating disease, miraculously survives, and finds the will to resume his writing career by a strange chance discovery of a stationary store in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, and a mysterious blue notebook he finds there. It was really riveting. Afterwards he signed books, which they were selling outside at a 20% discount (Book of Illusions, Timbuktu, Red Notebook). From what it sounded like, this was the first public reading of this new Paul Auster work, so I felt very pleased and excited. He said it was just finished and he doesn’t know quite what it is, but nonetheless, he felt compelled to share it. The reading was part of a series of readings hosted by the NYU Graduate Creative Writing Program."

On Friday 28th March 2003 Jérôme Huc kindly e-mailed me to say "According to the french magazine "Lire", Actes-Sud will publish in april a collection of chronicles (short stories, prefaces and articles) by Paul Auster about "anxiety", writing and literature (some of them were written more than thirty years ago, anothers after 9.11) and also an introduction to Nathaniel Hawthorne's diary." He also sent me the following link.

Here are the relevant details:

Paul AUSTER
CONSTAT D'ACCIDENT ET AUTRES TEXTES
Traduit de l'américain par Christine Le BSuf
Actes Sud, Domaine anglo-américain
Romans, nouvelles, récits
avril 2003 / 10 x 19 / 112 pages / FF / 12 ¬ / ISBN 2742742468 / F79264

Paul AUSTER Nathaniel HAWTHORNE
HAWTHORNE EN FAMILLE VINGT JOURS AVEC JULIAN ET PETIT LAPIN SELON PAPA SUIVI DE HAWTHORNE EN FAMILLE
Traduit de l'anglais par Françoise Charras, Christine Le BSuf
Actes Sud, Domaine anglo-américain
Romans, nouvelles, récits
Texte présenté par Paul AUSTER
avril 2003 / 10 x 19 / 160 pages / FF / 14 ¬ / ISBN 2742742549 / F79272

Paul AUSTER
HISTOIRE DE MA MACHINE À ÉCRIRE
Traduit de l'américain par Christine Le BSuf
Actes Sud, Domaine anglo-américain
Romans, nouvelles, récits
Illustré par Sam MESSER
avril 2003 / 10 x 19 / 50 pages / FF / 12 ¬ / ISBN 274274245X / F79263

On Sunday 23rd March 2003 Sara Serrao reviewed the Planeausters' forthcoming CD 'Ruby Light Shine'. I will update you with a release date nearer the time.

Lead singer Mike Moravek informed me recently that "right now we entered into negotiations with a hamburg record company about a release."

Below is the upcoming tour schedule for the American Drama Group's current tour of 'Moon Palace' - which has been adapted from Paul Auster’s novel by Paul Stebbings & Phil Smith for TNT Theatre Britain and the American Drama Group Europe: "...we kept pretty true to the story in terms of MS's journey. It was difficult though, and the script was workshopped and rewritten many times during rehearsals!"

March 10, 2003 Theater Görlitz 11:00
March 11, 2003 Theater Ingolstadt 19:30
March 12, 2003 Ulmer Theater 16:00 / 20:00 Uhr
March 13, 2003 Altes Stadttheater Stuttgart 11:00 / 15:00
March 14, 2003 Altes Stadttheater Stuttgart 11:00 / 15:00
March 17, 2003 Theater Minden 11:00
March 17, 2003 Theater Lüneburg 20:00
March 19, 2003 Bürgerhaus Langenberg 11:00
March 20, 2003 Bürgerhaus Koblenz 10:30
March 21, 2003 Stadthalle Ravensburg 20:00
March 23, 2003 Bremer Theater 19:30
March 24, 2003 Theater Tübingen 19:00
March 25, 2003 Tübingen 11:00 /19:00
March 26, 2003 Theater im Pfalzbau Ludwigshafen 11:00 / 19:00
March 27, 2003 Bürgerhaus Zehringen Freiburg 16:00 / 19:00
March 28, 2003 Freiburg 19:00
March 31, 2003 Stadthalle Meschede 11:00
April 1-4, 2003 Selesiansek Devadlo Prague (8x)
April 7, 2003 Altes Stadttheater Stuttgart 11:00 / 15:00
April 8, 2003 Schauspielhaus Bochum Kammerspiele 20:00
April 9, 2003 Schauspielhaus Bochum Kammerspiele 10:00

Paul Auster's new novel 'The Book of Illusions' will be out in paperback in the UK on Monday 7th April 2003. Faber & Faber have confirmed that Paul Auster won't be visiting the UK for a book signing.

Tip Ster kindly e-mailed me with the following article: "For Richer or Poorer, Hustvedt Revisits Murder" which appeared in the New York Observer on Wednesday 12th March 2003.

On Sunday 9th March 2003 I received an e-mail from Robert Kemp saying that Paul Auster has been awarded a 2002 Original Voices Award in Fiction for 'The Book of Illusions'. It read:

"Paul Auster is no newcomer to the literary scene; The Book of Illusions is the 10th novel in his rich and esteemed career. Thus, he falls into the second category for an Original Voices book: "an established author who has taken his work in new and noteworthy directions." The Original Voices committee for Fiction felt that The Book of Illusions shows Auster at the height of his powers. They chose it for its "amazing thematic unity, its poignant, unyielding exploration of the importance of personal legacy and the effects of death and loss, its resonant descriptive beauty, and its convincing characters."

On Wednesday 12th February 2003 between 1 and 2pm Paul Auster attended the New York University's Graduate Program in Creative Writing and the Fales Library which presented "Poetry and The American Voice: Writers Respond to Laura Bush's Cancellation of the White House Poetry Symposium" with Nicholas Christopher, E. L. Doctorow, Melissa Hammerle, Marie Howe, Galway Kinnell, Charlotte Mandel, Sharon Olds, Katha Pollitt, Marie Ponsot, Tom Sleigh, Irini Spanidou, Jean Valentine, Chuck Wachtel, and students from the NYU creative writing program. The reading was free and open to the public.

"It's different from culture to culture," Auster said. "In some cultures, writers are listened to and what they say is taken seriously. In America, writers tend to be ignored entirely. If I could explain why, I would understand this culture much better than I do."

Classed as “A Day of Poetry Against the War” in cities and towns all across the United States and around the world, poets, (including Auster), gathered for readings against the impending war.

On Saturday 1st February 2003 the Rotunda Gallery in Brooklyn Heights hosted a literary event featuring Brooklyn writers reading old and new work about real and imagined plagues. Paul Auster and Siri Hustvedt were amongst the readers. This was organised by guest curator Nelly Reifler.

On Thursday 16th January 2003 there was another Charles Bernstein edition of LINEbreak at 11pm on Resonance 104.4fm. LINEbreak's a 31-part series of half-hour long interview/performance programmes with innovative writers of all stripes including Bruce Andrews, Paul Auster, Robert Creeley, Karen Mac Cormack, Jackson Mac Low, and Steve McCaffery.

On Wednesday 1st January 2003 Alan Brilliant e-mailed me to say "When Paul was a freshman at Columbia, he got in touch with my small literary press, Unicorn Press (Santa Barbara, Caliornia). Since our press was young and unknown, I asked him how he had ever heard of us. He said he had just been hiking on The Appalachian Trail, and he tripped over a log and kicked up some leaves. Under the leaves, hidden, was a volume in the Unicorn French Series, a tiny little book we had published, in an "Insel Bucherei" format, entitled "Henri Michaux" (bilingual). Paul had some wonderul translations of Dupin that he sent along with the letter introducing himself. All of Paul's Unicorn dealings, especially with Teo Savory (whom he published) are in the Unicorn Archives at Brown University's John Hay Library Special Collections."

From Saturday 7th December 2002 to Saturday 4th January 2003 there was an exhibition at the Nielsen Gallery of Sam Messer's work featured in the recently published 'The Story of my Typewriter'. The works by Messer which are currently hanging in this Boston art gallery are all of Paul Auster's typewriter. I e-mailed the gallery directly about possible portraits of Paul Auster himself and they replied with:

"There is one Auster portrait available that measures 58 x 48 in. at a price of $15,000." You'll need to get in touch with the gallery by e-mail to find out more.

The prices of the other paintings are as follows "The Messer typewriters that are still available on our site are mostly $6,000. "Black Olympia" and "Blow" are $8,000. "Just Write" and "Weeping Olympia" are $22,000." Thank you to Amy Schoenberg for her help with this. Here are some aforementioned examples:

In December 2002 Paul Auster read 'The Story of my Typewriter' to a select audience in a small bookstore in Brooklyn. Paul Auster and Sam Messer signed copies of the book after the reading.

On Monday 2nd December 2002 Jorge Squarzon e-mailed to say "I saw Paul briefly in the San Francisco peninsula a few days ago, and well, I could not help but ask him about his impressions of Buenos Aires. Somehow I knew that he would love the city, it's beauty, it's mix of people, it's sophistication. And he did! The Buenos Aires daily "Clarín", reports that film director Alejandro Chomski, has permission to make a movie based on "The Country of Last Things". It remains to be seen what comes out of it, considering the chaos in BA, but as is often the case, times of crisis often bring out great artistic creation."

On Monday 2nd December 2002 Marrije Schaake of Duck For Cover kindly e-mailed me to say that in "the Guardian's books of the year. Both Anthony Holden and Stephen Fry quote The Book of Illusions (which I have just finished, beautiful!) as their favourites of 2002."

A new resource book was published in November 2002 called "Paul Auster and Postmodern Quest: On the Road to Nowhere" by Ilana Shiloh. It costs $55.95 and was published by Peter Lang Publishing.

On Tuesday 29th October 2002 Paul Auster was at NY Is Book Country in New York.

On Friday 26th and Saturday 27th October 2001 Paul Auster along with Robert Krulwich (ABC correspondent/producer) and Jacki Lyden (NPR - Weekend All Things Considered) took part in 'Talking Story with the Kitchen Sisters' which was part of the inaugural Third Coast conference taking place in Chicago - a weekend dedicated entirely to the craft of making great radio.