American writer Paul Auster, famous in the United States and Europe for his novels depicting New York and who has been suffering from cancer for months at the age of 76, is not yet out of the woods, his wife testified on Wednesday Siri Hustvedt.
In a long poignant post on Instagram, accompanied by photos of the young couple, the 68-year-old American writer also announces that a new “little” novel by Paul Auster will be released in November.
“I have kept silent because the territory of ‘Cancerland’ is confusing and treacherous,” writes the novelist and essayist after announcing six months ago on the same social network that her husband’s cancer was treated in New York. “The patient, and I with him, traveled in a straight line on a road but were delayed and turned in circles. We have not yet passed the sign “You are leaving Cancerland” which marks the border of the country”, testifies Siri Hustvedt.
She had revealed in March that her “husband had been diagnosed with cancer in December (2022) after being ill for the months leading up to it” and said “living in a place I have come to call ‘Cancerland’ “. Siri Hustvedt does not specify what type of cancer Paul Auster suffers from, nor his prognosis. Comparing her husband’s fate to that of “sick children”, she believes that “Paul has many years behind him, his childhood, his youth, adulthood” and that “he is now old.” “He wrote many books. Another novel he completed while ill, “Baumgartner”, will be published in November, it’s a tender and miraculous little book”, she announces.
Paul Auster is the author of more than thirty books which have been translated into more than 40 languages. He made a name for himself in 1982 with “The Invention of Solitude”, an autobiographical novel in which he tries to identify his father’s personality. The novelist broke through in 1987 on the international scene, particularly in Europe, with his “New York Trilogy”, a noir novel inspired by the detective genre. In April 2022, he lost his 44-year-old son Daniel Auster, whom he had with writer Lydia Davis. He had died of an “accidental overdose” in New York after being charged with manslaughter for the death at the end of 2021, also by overdose, of his daughter Ruby, aged only ten months.
