Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, RWTH Aachen University, 13 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: PAUL AUSTER s novel ′City of Glass′ published in 1985 appeared during the period of the postmodern era.1 Although it is considerably discussed at what time the beginnings of the postmodern era is to be set, it is irrefutable that City of Glass belongs to postmodern literature. To analyse in how far PAUL AUSTER s City of Glass serves as a representative of the postmodern era and to show the reader in what way postmodern qualities are converted into the writings of that time, the main part of this paper will be divided up into two sections. The first section serves to define the coming up of this movement and the qualities it possesses within the genre of detective fiction. Furthermore some important idealistic features like the idea of reality and identity have to be taken into consideration. The short introduction of the two identity-constituting models by ERIKSON and MEAD will provide a better overview of the idea of identity formation. Within the second section the novel itself will be taken into consideration. Therefore it is necessary to take a close look at the main character Daniel Quinn and his character development the crisis of his identity in the course of the novel respectively. Besides another striking factor, namely the appearance of doublings and triplings of characters, has to be clarified as well as the role of the narrator. The conclusion at the end of the paper is supposed then to show to what extent City of Glass belongs to postmodern literature and which peculiarities of postmodern writings have been included in this novel. Since there are just a few recent publications on Paul Auster and his novels three of them namely, An Art of Desire: Reading Paul Auster by BERND HERZOGENRATH, Crisis: The Works of Paul Auster by CARSTEN SPRINGER and the pu

Nawal el Saadawi's classic tale attempts to square Islam with a society in which women are respected as equals is as relevant today as ever. 'People have become corrupt everywhere. You can search in vain for Islam, or a devout Muslim. They no longer exist.' Kafr El Teen is a beautiful, sleepy village on the banks of the Nile. Yet at its heart it is tyrannical and corrupt. The Mayor, Sheikh Hamzawi of the mosque, and the Chief of the Village Guard are obsessed by wealth and use and abuse the women of the village, taking them as slaves, marrying them and beating them. Resistance, it seems, is futile. Zakeya, an ordinary villager, works in the fields by the Nile and watches the world, squatting in the dusty entrance to her house, quietly accepting her fate. It is only when her nieces fall prey to the Mayor that Zakeya becomes enraged by the injustice of her society and possessed by demons. Where is the loving and peaceful God in whom Zakeya believes?"

A graphic, crime noir novel on a New York detective-cum-novelist who answers a wrong number. A double- barreled investigation, one from the perspective of the detective, the other from that of the novelist. Adapted from Paul Auster's City of Glass by the creators of Maus.

Although readers of detective fiction ordinarily expect to learn the mystery's solution at the end, there is another kind of detective story—the history of which encompasses writers as diverse as Poe, Borges, Robbe-Grillet, Auster, and Stephen King—that ends with a question rather than an answer. The detective not only fails to solve the crime, but also confronts insoluble mysteries of interpretation and identity. As the contributors to Detecting Texts contend, such stories belong to a distinct genre, the "metaphysical detective story," in which the detective hero's inability to interpret the mystery inevitably casts doubt on the reader's similar attempt to make sense of the text and the world. Detecting Texts includes an introduction by the editors that defines the metaphysical detective story and traces its history from Poe's classic tales to today's postmodernist experiments. In addition to the editors, contributors include Stephen Bernstein, Joel Black, John T. Irwin, Jeffrey T. Nealon, and others.

The second book in the acclaimed New York Trilogy--a detective story that becomes a haunting and eerie exploration of identity and deception. It is a story of hidden violence that culminates in an inevitable but unexpectedly shattering climax.

The novels of Paul Auster—finely wrought, self-reflexive, filled with doublings, coincidences, and mysteries—have captured the imagination of readers and the admiration of many critics of contemporary literature. In Beyond the Red Notebook, the first book devoted to the works of Auster, Dennis Barone has assembled an international group of scholars who present twelve essays that provide a rich and insightful examination of Auster's writings. The authors explore connections between Auster's poetry and fiction, the philosophical underpinnings of his writing, its relation to detective fiction, and its unique embodiment of the postmodern sublime. Their essays provide the fullest analysis available of Auster's themes of solitude, chance, and paternity found in works such as The Invention of Solitude, City of Glass, Ghosts, The Locked Room, In the Country of Last Things, Moon Palace, The Music of Chance, and Leviathan. This volume includes contributions from Pascal Bruckner, Marc Chenetier, Norman Finkelstein, Derek Rubin, Madeleine Sorapure, Stephen Bernstein, Tim Woods, Steven Weisenburger, Arthur Saltzman, Eric Wirth, and Motoyuki Shibata. The extensive bibliography, prepared by William Drenttel, will greatly benefit both scholars and general readers.

When reclusive crime writer Daniel Quinn receives a mysterious call seeking a private detective in the middle of the night, he quickly and unwittingly becomes the protagonist in a thriller of his own. As the familiar territory of the noir detective genre gives way to something altogether more disturbing, Quinn becomes consumed by his mission, and begins to lose his grip on reality.