Collected Novels Volume 3

In Timbuktu, troubled Brooklyn poet-saint Willy G. Christmas embarks on one last great adventure in the company of his canine sidekick Mr Bones. In The Book of Illusions a grieving professor finds his obsession with the true-life story of a great silent comedian leading him into a mysterious shadow-world. In Oracle Night a novelist lately recovered from near-fatal illness falls under the spell of a blank notebook that is seemingly the source of eeire premonitions and bewildering events. And in The Brooklyn Follies an uncle and his nephew, both wounded by past misfortunes, wind up in the same Brooklyn neighbourhood and find their lives profoundly affected by a little girl who refuses to speak. Highly varied yet instantly recognisable, these four novels comprise the most recent chapter in the ongoing career of an author now responsible for ten great American novels. 'Auster has an enormous talent for creating worlds that are both fantastic and believable . . . His novels are uniformly difficult to put down, a testament to his storytelling gifts.' San Francisco Chronicle

Paul Auster was the bestselling author of 4 3 2 1, Sunset Park, The Book of Illusions, Moon Palace and The New York Trilogy. He and Spencer Ostrander collaborated on Bloodbath Nation. In 2006, he was awarded the Prince of Asturias Prize for Literature. His other honours include the Prix Medicis Étranger for Leviathan, the Independent Spirit Award for the Screenplay of Smoke, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Burning Boy, and the Carlos Fuentes Prize for his body of work. His novel 4 3 2 1 was shortlisted for the 2017 Man Booker Prize. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and was a Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. His work was translated into more than forty languages. His final novel, Baumgartner, was published in November 2023. He died on 30 April 2024.