True Tales of American Life

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A01=Paul Auster
american short stories
Author_Paul Auster
best american short stories
Category=DNX
Category=NHK
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lydia davis
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Product details

  • ISBN 9780571210701
  • Weight: 331g
  • Dimensions: 127 x 198mm
  • Publication Date: 07 Oct 2002
  • Publisher: Faber & Faber
  • Publication City/Country: GB
  • Product Form: Paperback
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Chosen by Paul Auster out of the four thousand stories submitted to his radio programme on National Public Radio, these 180 stories provide a wonderful portrait of America in the twentieth century. The requirement for selection was that each of the stories should be true, and each of the writers should not have been previously published. The collection that has emerged provides a richly varied and authentic voice for the American people, whose lives, loves, griefs, regrets, joys and sense of humour are vividly and honestly recounted throughout, and adeptly organised by Auster into themed sections. The section composed of war stories stretches as far back as the Civil War, still the defining moment in American history; while the sequence of 'Meditations' conclude the volume with a true and abiding sense of transcendence.

The resultant anthology is both an enduring hymn to the strange everyday of contemporary American life and a masterclass in the art of storytelling.

Paul Auster (1947-2024) was the bestselling author of The New York Trilogy, Sunset Park, The Book of Illusions, Moon Palace and 4 3 2 1, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Among his many international honours were the Prix Médicis Étranger, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Prince of Asturias Prize for Literature and the Carlos Fuentes Prize, given in recognition of his body of work. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He lived in Brooklyn, New York.

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