About the Paul Auster Library

Today, when many research questions concern cultural diplomacy and globalization, we need to look at the individual vehicles which, each in their own way, contribute to exchanges of values and ideas across borders. What are the virtues (and vices) by which particular works of verbal and visual art become internationally acknowledged? What is it about them that appeals to audiences throughout the world – across divisions of language, ethnicity, politics, gender and age? How are the scholarly, social, political functions of literature linked to its affective and cognitive functions? What cultural similarities and differences may be transmitted through translation? 

With more than thirty books, some translated into more than forty languages, and a selection of films, the collected body of Auster’s work is just such a vehicle: an articulate multi-form corpus of verbal and visual material that has enchanted readers and challenged scholars in the Western world, Asia and the Middle East for over four decades. Popular reasons for its global appeal are summed up in the Guardian’s –cursory but apt– explanation: Auster "thinks big but talks small." At academic level, numerous studies testify to a thematically rich oeuvre of direct relevance to the questions above.

The Paul Auster Library is an international hub for research in the work of Paul Auster, the first of its kind in the world. It draws on the expertise of scholars and artists alike and will seek to bring together all parties involved in the making of a book: authors, editors, translators, illustrators, critics, reviewers, readers. It aims to provide a virtual home for Auster’s electronic manuscripts in a series of translations, generously assisted by publishing houses around the world.