Paul Auster

New York-based writer Paul Auster is the author of 10 novels. His latest is The Book of Illusions. For a year beginning in October 1999, Auster gathered stories sent to him by men and women across the United States. The stories were all true, short and personal. As part of NPR's National Story Project, Auster read them over the air. Those stories were collected in the book, I Thought My Father Was God. Auster also wrote the screenplays for Smoke and Blue in the Face.

Novelist Paul Auster has written a new memoir about his struggling years as a young writer, "Hand to Mouth: A Chronicle of Early Failure" (Henry Holt). Auster has written eight novels, including "The New York Trilogy" and the screenplay for the film "Smoke."

Auster has been called "America's most spectacularly inventive writers." He recently "broadened his creative reach" with his work on two films, "Smoke" and "Blue in the Face,"in a double collaboration with director Wayne Wang , who also directed "The Joy Luck Club.” Auster's novels include "Moon Palace," "The Music of Chance," "Leviathan," and "Mr. Vertigo."