Ali Abdel Rahman (Cairo)
“If you have a pencil in your pocket, it is very likely that one day you will feel the urge to start using it,” this quote was coined by the late American writer and director Paul Auster, who died in the tenth century finally. April, and he said this sentence when he was eight years old, he did not get an autograph from the basketball hero Willie Mays, because he and his father did not have a pencil to get the signature the person’s life who died, became a turning point in his career in the world of culture and literature. Paul Auster was born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1947. His literary career began at the age of eight when he failed to receive an autograph from baseball legend Willie Mays. He graduated from Columbia University in 1970 and received degree in English, Italian, and French literature. After graduating, he decided to move to the capital of light, “Paris,” and worked as a translator of the works of French writers, publishing their works in American magazines, as well as to work in other jobs in 1974 America. Paul Auster was married twice, the first in 1977 to his university colleague Lydia Davis, with whom he had a son, “Daniel.” They divorced soon after, and the second in 1981 to the novelist Siri Hustvedt, with whom he had a daughter. , “Sophie.” In January 1979, Auster’s father died, and this event became the seed for the writer’s first memoir, The Invention of Solitude, published in 1982, in which he revealed that his paternal grandfather had died. was killed by his grandmother, who was acquitted on grounds of impurity.
City of Glass
Paul Auster’s breakthrough came when his novel “City of Glass” was published in 1985, the first novel in the New York Trilogy Although the books appear to be mystery stories, Auster used the form to ask questions making a living about identity. He published his literary work regularly throughout the eighties, nineties, and the first decade of the twenty-first century, writing more than a dozen novels, including “Palace of the Moon” (1989), ” The Music of Chance” (1990), “The Book of Illusions” (2002), and “The Oracle Knight” (2003). for best first play in 1995.
In addition to writing and directing several films, including “Lulu on the Bridge” 1998, “The Inner Life of Martin Frost” 2007, and a documentary film in 2009, in which he deals with the those who survived the lightning and the thunder a special case for the late writer after witnessing the death of one of his friends at the age of 14 They were electrocuted during their summer trip.
Egyptian critic Menna Obaid says: Critics often portrayed Paul Auster as a transatlantic hybrid in his career, which included more than 30 books, as well as articles, poetry, and screenplays inspired by French literary traditions, including… Includes oral reflections. Menna said that Paul Auster spent several years in Paris as a progressive author, and his broad interest was always to question the philosophical and national basis of individualism and authenticity, and to give a challenge to stable states of complacency as well as the capacities of the human imagination in a world of… Non-compensation.
The innovation of isolation
The Jordanian critic Fadel Maarik says that, although Paul Auster belongs to a middle-class family, money was a constant source of family disputes, which led to the divorce of his autobiographical literature parents, about his father. Fadl Maarik said that Paul Auster was not attracted to the material world, and he believed that manual labor was better than the world of office work and the struggle to make money, and this was clearly visible in his novel ” The Ways of Living. “
The Jordanian critic said that Auster made a special case for his literary works, describing his writings as “a very deep nihilism,” although this was balanced somewhat by “the incredible joy that to feel alive. “
During his literary career, which included more than 30 books and was translated into more than 40 languages around the world, including Arabic, Paul Auster won many literary awards between -prestigious nationals, more than 18 in number, the first of which was in 1989 for “The New York Trilogy,” and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the French Order of Arts and Letters with the rank of Commander , and the Dublin Literary Award, as well as an award. honorary doctorate from the University of Liège.
