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Paul Auster, great American writer, known for his “New York Trilogy”, was diagnosed with cancer last December and is currently being treated in a center in New York, according to his wife Siri Hustvedt.
It is a story, very real, which puts the literary world in turmoil. Sunday March 12, Siri Hustvedt, writer and wife of Paul Auster, announced her husband’s cancer on her Instagram account, in a poignant text.
“I live in a place I call Cancerland”
“My husband was diagnosed with cancer in December after being ill for the months leading up to it”she announces in the caption of a photo of the couple.
“I live in a place that I have come to call Cancerland. (…) Many people have crossed its borders, either because they are or have been sick themselves, or because they love someone a parent, child, spouse or friend who has or has had cancer”she describes.
In a rather poetic style, Siri Hustvedt thus approaches the daily life which changes, the importance of the entourage. But at no time does she mention her husband’s type of cancer. We only learn that the 76-year-old man has been treated since December at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. “Living with someone who has cancer and is bombarded with chemotherapy and immunotherapy is an adventure of closeness and separation” she adds.
An essential New York writer
Paul Auster, sacred monster of American literature, is the author of more than thirty books which have been translated into more than 40 languages. Part of his work evokes the city of New York, in particular the district of Brooklyn where he lives. He notably made himself known in 1982 thanks to The invention of loneliness, an autobiographical novel. The novelist achieved international fame in 1987 with his “New York Trilogy“, a noir novel inspired by the detective genre.
Difficult to know today the state of the writer and his prognosis. On the other hand, he seems to be able to count on the support of his admirers and his wife:
“It’s not easy to walk that tightrope, of course, but that’s the real labor of love” she punctuates her announcement.