On January 24th, 1990, Paul Auster visited the John Adams Institute to speak on one of the central themes in his novels; the search for the limits of human existence.
Auster grew up in Newark, New Jersey, in a family of Jewish-Austrian descent. He spent a few years in France, were he mainly focused on poetry and journalism. His first novel The Invention of Solitude was published in 1982 and received critical acclaim from the American press.
His work is deeply anchored in both American and European literary tradition. The exploration of the limits of the “self” as opposed to its surroundings is a theme Auster explores throughout many of his novels, including The New York Trilogy (1986), In the Country of Last Things (1987) and Moonpalace (1989).
Theo d’Haen, professor of British and American Literature at the University of Leiden, introduced Paul Auster’s work and moderated the evening.
Paul Auster currently lives in Brooklyn, New York City.
