Paul Auster dies at 77: what is the cause of death?

The world of literature is in mourning. Paul Auster, the prolific author of works such as ‘The New York Trilogy’, died this Tuesday at the age of 77 due to complications from lung cancer that he had been suffering, as reported by the ‘The New York Times’.

According to the aforementioned media outlet, the famous American writer died at his home in Brooklyn, the bunker from which true works of art have emerged. There he lived with his wife, the author Siri Hustvedt, who announced the novelist’s cancer diagnosis last year.

An icon of literature

Auster was not born in New York, but in the neighboring state, New Jersey. However, as the years went by, he made the Big Apple his own, especially the borough of Brooklyn. He became quite an icon as his reputation grew through works like the one already mentioned, ‘The New York Trilogy’.

This has not been his only critically acclaimed work, publishing a new book on a yearly basis. His talent shone with creations such as ‘4 3 2 1′, ‘The Book of Illusions’, ‘Moon Palace’ and ‘The Brooklyn Follies’, among others. In addition, he wrote collections of stories, essays, poems, plays and screenplays, making his first steps in the world of cinema with the script for the 1995 film ‘Smoke’.

We must also remember his latest novel, ‘Baumgartner’, which was published last year, and which is about Sy Baumgartner, a philosophy professor and writer about to retire who lost his wife, Anna, in an accident a decade earlier. A novel of just 200 pages that arrived just when the cancer was diagnosed and that recounts an episode of life: old age.