Auster, the elder statesman of the Brooklyn literary scene, is the author of a dozen novels including The New York Trilogy.

After growing up in New Jersey, Auster graduated from Columbia in 1970 and then spent a lengthy apprenticeship toiling in obscurity, including three lean years in Paris. He finally made his reputation with 1987's The New York Trilogy, a series of postmodern takes on the detective/mystery genre. He's gone on to publish a dozen more books and has also done work on the big screen over the years: He adapted the script for the film Smoke and directed the same cast in Blue in the Face.

When Auster met his current wife Siri Hustvedt in 1981, Auster had been separated from his first wife, the writer Lydia Davis, for several years. He and Davis have an adult son, Daniel, who was briefly notorious in the '90s as one of the inner circle of New York "club kids" presided over by Michael Alig, the party promoter jailed for the manslaughter of his friend and dealer Angel Melendez. [Image via Getty]