UPDATE: THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED.
Celebrated novelist Paul Auster‘s comprehensive, landmark biography of the great American writer Stephen Crane will be released in celebration of Crane’s 150th birthday on November 1st. With Burning Boy, Auster tells the extraordinary story of Stephen Crane, best known as the author of The Red Badge of Courage, who transformed American literature through an avalanche of original short stories, novellas, poems, journalism, and war reportage before his life was cut short by tuberculosis at age twenty-eight.
In this special talk on November 17, Auster will focus on Crane’s life in and writing in the Village and surrounding areas of NYC, including Washington Square, the Bowery, and more. Auster’s insight into Crane’s astonishing originality, productivity, and rare creative processes are those of a fellow literary master. The talk will be co-hosted by the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, Three Lives Bookstore, the Literary Pub Crawl, Untapped New York, Jefferson Market Library, Tompkins Square Library, and Hudson Park Library. The event is free for Untapped New York Insiders (and get your first month free with code JOINUS).
“Burning Boy” Writing New York: Paul Auster on Stephen Crane
Born in Newark, New Jersey, Crane became a full-time writer in and around Sullivan County, NY, after studying at Lafayette College and Syracuse University. After moving to Paterson, he would make frequent trips to New York City, focusing particularly on the Bowery and its cultural sites. Crane struggled to make a living out of his freelance work, but he did submit articles and sketches to local New York publications. He based his book Maggie: A Girl of the Streets off of his observations of New York, but the novel (now considered one of his best-known) did not sell well after being rejected by publishers. While in New York, he worked on writing and editing The Red Badge of Courage and even offered the finished manuscript to McClure’s Magazine based in New York. The magazine could not afford to pay him, although he was put on an assignment about Pennsylvania coal mines, which he reflected was a waste since his article was very heavily edited.
Paul Auster is the bestselling author of 4 3 2 1, Winter Journal, Sunset Park, Invisible, The Brooklyn Follies, The Book of Illusions, and The New York Trilogy, among many other works. In 2006 he was awarded the Prince of Asturias Prize for Literature. Among his other honors are the Prix Médicis étranger for Leviathan, the Independent Spirit Award for the screenplay of Smoke, and the Premio Napoli for Sunset Park (which takes place in Brooklyn). In 2012 he was the first recipient of the NYC Literary Honors in the category of Fiction. He has also been a finalist for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award (The Book of Illusions), the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction (The Music of Chance), and the Edgar Award (City of Glass). He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. His work has been translated into more than forty languages. He lives in Brooklyn.
In this special talk on November 17, Auster will focus on Crane’s life in and writing in the Village and surrounding areas of NYC, including Washington Square, the Bowery, and more. The event is free for Untapped New York Insiders (and get your first month free with code JOINUS).
“Burning Boy” Writing New York: Paul Auster on Stephen Crane
Next, check out the Crooked Past of Greenwich Village’s Two Minettas, the seedy backdrop for a short thriller by Stephen Crane.
