Uploaded May 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
The acclaimed novelist reflects on the loss of her husband, Paul Auster, and her searing memoir of love and grief. For event details and more, visit nypl.org/events/programs/2026/05/05/siri-hustvedt
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In Ghost Stories, Siri Hustvedt reflects on the 43 years she shared with her husband, writer Paul Auster, tracing their life together from their early days in 1980s New York to his death in 2024. The memoir gathers memories of their daily rituals alongside Auster’s final writings, including letters and an unfinished work addressed to his grandson. Moving between personal recollection and philosophical inquiry, Ghost Stories is a meditation on memory, love, and the lives we continue to carry. The Library is proud to hold the papers of Paul Auster, which date from 1963 to 2022 and contain all aspects of his professional work, including typescript and holograph drafts, notebooks, correspondence, audio and moving image recordings, clippings, and ephemera.
Hustvedt speaks with physician and literary scholar Rita Charon about how grief reshapes time and the self, and how a loved one’s presence lingers even after they’re gone.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Siri Hustvedt is the author of a book of poetry, five collections of essays, two works of nonfiction, and seven novels, including the international bestsellers What I Loved and The Summer Without Men. Her novel The Blazing World was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won the Los Angeles Book Prize for fiction. She is the recipient of many other awards, including the Gabarron Prize for Thought and Humanities, the Princess of Asturias Award for Literature, an American Academy of Arts and Letters prize, and the Sigourney Award for expanding psychoanalytic thought. She has a PhD in English from Columbia University and is a lecturer in psychiatry at Weil Cornell Medical College in New York. Her work has been translated into over thirty languages.
Rita Charon is an internist, literary scholar, and founder of the discipline of narrative medicine. Professor of medicine and founding Chair of Medical Humanities and Ethics at Columbia, she works to bring concepts and skills from the arts and humanities into the practices of equitable and person-centered health care.
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To make the experience better for all of our social media followers, we ask that you keep your comments relevant to the original post. Off-topic comments may be removed to ensure that the conversation remains productive.
The acclaimed novelist reflects on the loss of her husband, Paul Auster, and her searing memoir of love and grief. For event details and more, visit nypl.org/events/programs/2026/05/05/siri-hustvedt
READ THE BOOK
NYPL Catalog: borrow.nypl.org/search/card?id=585c2e00-dda5-56e4-93a4-26f6aafa4500&entityType=FormatGroup
The Library Shop — proceeds benefit The New York Public Library: shop.nypl.org/collections/events-books/products/ghost-stories-a-memoir
LIVE FROM NYPL
Upcoming Events: nypl.org/live
Sign up for our newsletters: nypl.org/updates
In Ghost Stories, Siri Hustvedt reflects on the 43 years she shared with her husband, writer Paul Auster, tracing their life together from their early days in 1980s New York to his death in 2024. The memoir gathers memories of their daily rituals alongside Auster’s final writings, including letters and an unfinished work addressed to his grandson. Moving between personal recollection and philosophical inquiry, Ghost Stories is a meditation on memory, love, and the lives we continue to carry. The Library is proud to hold the papers of Paul Auster, which date from 1963 to 2022 and contain all aspects of his professional work, including typescript and holograph drafts, notebooks, correspondence, audio and moving image recordings, clippings, and ephemera.
Hustvedt speaks with physician and literary scholar Rita Charon about how grief reshapes time and the self, and how a loved one’s presence lingers even after they’re gone.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Siri Hustvedt is the author of a book of poetry, five collections of essays, two works of nonfiction, and seven novels, including the international bestsellers What I Loved and The Summer Without Men. Her novel The Blazing World was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won the Los Angeles Book Prize for fiction. She is the recipient of many other awards, including the Gabarron Prize for Thought and Humanities, the Princess of Asturias Award for Literature, an American Academy of Arts and Letters prize, and the Sigourney Award for expanding psychoanalytic thought. She has a PhD in English from Columbia University and is a lecturer in psychiatry at Weil Cornell Medical College in New York. Her work has been translated into over thirty languages.
Rita Charon is an internist, literary scholar, and founder of the discipline of narrative medicine. Professor of medicine and founding Chair of Medical Humanities and Ethics at Columbia, she works to bring concepts and skills from the arts and humanities into the practices of equitable and person-centered health care.
The New York Public Library welcomes your comments and invites you to participate in conversations on NYPL social media platforms.
To make the experience better for all of our social media followers, we ask that you keep your comments relevant to the original post. Off-topic comments may be removed to ensure that the conversation remains productive.
