Paul Auster and True Tales of American Life
Paul Auster and True Tales of American Life
Paul Auster and True Tales of American Life
Paul Auster on US National Public Radio. Auster credits his wife with the idea of
having listeners send in their own short pieces of true -life writing, from which
Auster would choose half a dozen to be read on air each week. But, for all the
success of the radio programme, as Auster writes, "you can't hold the words in
your hands".
Auster has selected 179 pieces from the 4,000 plus he had received by October
2000. Split fairly evenly between male and female authors, with an age range of
so on. The biographical detail is relevant because inevitably most of these true
stories draw on the rawest of raw materials, the writers' own experience.
Auster wanted "true stories that sounded like fiction". In an age where talk
shows (think and ) demand that we tell our life stories
and potent meeting place of reality and art, or in Auster's words, "an archive of