Timbuktu - by Paul Auster (Paperback)

About the Book

"Portions of this book originally appeared in Granta"--T.p. verso.

Book Synopsis

Meet Mr. Bones, the canine hero of Paul Auster's ("One of America's most spectacularly inventive writers" --The TLS) remarkable novel, Timbuktu.

Mr. Bones is the sidekick and confidant of Willy G. Christmas, the brilliant, troubled, and altogether original poet-saint from Brooklyn. Like Don Quixote and Sancho Panza before them, they sally forth on a last great adventure, heading for Baltimore, Maryland in search of Willy's high school teacher, Bea Swanson. Years have passed since Willy last saw his beloved mentor, who knew him in his previous incarnation as William Gurevitch, the son of Polish war refugees. But is Mrs. Swanson still alive? And if she isn't, what will prevent Willy from vanishing into that other world known as Timbuktu?

Mr. Bones is our witness. Although he walks on four legs and cannot speak, he can think, and out of his thoughts Auster has spun one of the richest, most compelling tales in recent American fiction. By turns comic, poignant, and tragic, Timbuktu is above all a love story. Written with a scintillating verbal energy, it takes us into the heart of a singularly pure and passionate character, an unforgettable dog who has much to teach us about our own humanity.

Review Quotes

"Over the past twenty-five years, Paul Auster has established one of the most distinctive niches in contemporary literature." --Michael Dirda, The New York Review of Books

"[Timbuktu is] held aloft with audacity and brilliant, idiosyncratic language. . . . It's risk-taking and brazen energy suggest a writer on the verge of an even more rewarding leap into the air of his own uncharted territory." --Philip Graham, Chicago Tribune

"A novel of haunted love whose themes loop around one another like glowing coils, connecting gracefully beneath Auster's clear prose, eliciting the fanciful and the tragic." --Oscar Villalon, San Francisco Chronicle

"A modern parable that invites readers to probe below its deceptively simple surface for deeper truths . . . Auster demonstrates a well-honed talent for illuminating secluded facets of the soul." --Michael Hopkins, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

"Lovely . . . Paul Auster is one of our most inventive and least predictable authors." --Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post Book World

"One of America's most spectacularly inventive writers" --The Times Literary Supplement

About the Author

Paul Auster was the bestselling author of 4 3 2 1, Bloodbath Nation, Baumgartner, 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. In 2012, he was the first recipient of the NYC Literary Honors in the category of fiction. He was also a finalist for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award (The Book of Illusions), the PEN/Faulkner Award (The Music of Chance), the Edgar Award (City of Glass), and the Man Booker Prize (4 3 2 1). Auster was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. His work has been translated into more than forty languages. He died at age seventy-seven in 2024.