Red Notebook

In this acrobatic and virtuosic collection, Paul Auster traces the compulsion to make literature. In a selection of interviews, as well as in the collection's title essay, Auster reflects upon his own work, on the need to break down the boundary between living and writing, and on the use of certain genre conventions to penetrate matters of memory and identity. The Red Notebook both undermines and illuminates our accepted notions about literature, and guides us towards a finer understanding of the dangerous stakes of writing. It also includes Auster's impassioned essay 'A Prayer for Salman Rushdie', as well as a set of striking and bittersweet reminiscences collected under the apposite title, 'Why Write?'