Paul Auster is the author of eight previous novels, including The New York Trilogy, The Music of Chance, and Mr. Vertigo. He has also published poems, essays, and two works of autobiography, The Invention of Solitude and Hand to Mouth. He wrote the screenplays for Smoke, Blue in the Face, and Lulu on the Bridge (which he also directed). His work has been translated into twenty-seven languages. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.