Timbuktu - Softcover

Meet Mr Bones, the canine hero of Paul Auster's remarkable new novel, Timbuktu, his first work of fiction in five years. 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?

Paul Auster was born in Newark, New Jersey in the United States in 1947. He graduated from Columbia University with an MA degree. In 1970 he worked as a merchant seaman on an Esso oil tanker. From 1971 to 1974 he lived in France, spending two years in Paris and one in Provence. After returning to New York in 1974, he began his writing career.Throughout the 1970s he wrote mainly poetry and essays which appeared in various magazines including the New York Review of Books. During the 1980s he concentrated on prose writing: a memoir and four novels were published.His screenplay Smoke and Blue in the Face was published in April 1996 to coincide with the release of the film, and in 1999 Faber published the screenplay Lulu on the Bridge. The Art of Hunger (a collection of essays, interviews and prose) and his Selected Poems were published in November 1998.He is the author of nine novels, including The New York Trilogy</