Baumgartner is Paul Auster’s latest masterpiece, reflecting his keen eye for beauty in the smallest, most fleeting moments of ordinary life and capturing many lives.
Why do we remember some memories and forget others?
Baumgartner is the story of Baumgartner, a seventy-one-year-old philosophy professor who is deeply saddened by the death of his beloved wife, Anna, and is preparing to retire and withdraw from the world.
The novel begins with a recollection of Baumgartner and Anna’s penniless student days in New York City in 1968, describes their happy marriage over the next forty-plus years, and meanders through the spirals of memory and recollection, introducing Baumgartner’s early youth and Newark origins in flashbacks.
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PAUL AUSTER was born in 1947 in Newark, New Jersey, USA. At the age of 12 he developed a great interest in literature by reading the books of his uncle, an important translator. After studying French, English, and Italian literature at Columbia University, he lived in France for four years, translating French writers. He edited an important anthology of 20th-century French poetry. He first attracted attention in 1987 with his New York Üçlemesi. This was followed by the novels Ay Sarayı, Kehanet Gecesi, Köşeye Kıstırmak, Son Şeyler Ülkesinde, Leviathan, Şans Müziği, Timbuktu, Yanılsamalar Kitabı, Yükseklik Korkusu, Brooklyn Çılgınlıkları, Yazı Odasında Yolculuklar, Karanlıktaki Adam and Sunset Park, the memoir Yalnızlığın Keşfi, the collection of short stories Kırmızı Defter, and the memoir Kış Günlüğü. Auster lives in Brooklyn, New York.
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SEÇKİN SELVİ graduated from Üsküdar American College and continued her education at Ankara University, Faculty of Languages and History and Geography. She made his first translation in 1957 with William Saroyan’s Merhaba Dışarıdaki, which was staged at Stage Z. She carried out his professional life with his parallel work as a translator, journalist and theater critic. Between 1971-1980, she published the magazine Tiyatro 70 and between 1981-1982 Edebiyat 81 , where she was the editor-in-chief. Between 1982 and 1993, she worked as a columnist for Günaydın and Sabah newspapers. She has been writing theater criticism for Milliyet Sanat magazine since 1986. She taught criticism at Müjdat Gezen Art Center for five years and at Yeditepe University Theatre Department for ten years. She has translated 180 works in the fields of theater, philosophy and literature. She received the 2011 Translation Book of the Year Award from Dünya Kitap Magazine, the Translators’ Association Honorary Award on the occasion of her 50th anniversary as a translator, the Ankara University Faculty of Communication Honorary Award on the occasion of her 50th anniversary as a critic, and the First International Bodrum Theatre Festival Honorary Award for Contribution to Theatre. She continues to work as a translator and editor.
TITLE
Book Name: Baumgartner
Author: Paul Auster
Translation: Seckin Selvi
Publisher: Can Publishing
Series: Contemporary
Genre: Novel
Pages: 168
