Booker Prize-shortlisted and celebrated novelist Paul Auster talks about Burning Boy, his new comprehensive, landmark biography of the great American writer Stephen Crane, with National Book Award finalist Jayne-Anne Phillips. Auster tells the extraordinary story of Stephen Crane, best known as the author of The Red Badge of Courage, who transformed American literature through an avalanche of original short stories, novellas, poems, journalism, and war reportage.

“Brilliant and beautiful…This is more than a novel, more than a biography, more than a book of critical analysis. This is a significant work of literature.”—Russell Banks

All authors appear for free and the best way you can support them is to buy their book. This book is available for pre-order from Festival partner Watchung Booksellers here. The book is out on October 26.

Paul Auster is the bestselling author of 4 3 2 1, Sunset Park, Invisible, 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 has also been 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). He is 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 lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Jayne Anne Phillips, National Book Award finalist, twice an NBCC finalist, is the author of five novels, Quiet Dell, Lark And Termite, MotherKind, Shelter, and Machine Dreams, and two widely anthologized story collections, Fast Lanes,and Black Tickets. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, a Bunting Fellowship, a Howard Fellowship, and a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Fellowship. www.jayneannephilips.com

This event is part of Succeed2gether’s Montclair Literary Festival.

Any proceeds from the festival benefit parent organization, Montclair-based non-profit Succeed2gether, which offers after-school one-on-one tutoring and enrichment classes with the aim of closing the education and opportunity gaps in Essex County, NJ. You can read more about Succeed2gether and the festival at www.succeed2gether.org.

The festival organizing committee wishes to thank event partners Montclair Public Library and Watchung Booksellers, and festival sponsors Rao's, West of Hudson Realty Group, Montclair State University, Jill Williams (Ameriprise Financial), Ferguson Dental, the County of Essex, and community members.

Stephen Crane, Burning Boy of Newark, with Paul Auster