US novelist Paul Auster dies aged 77

New York: PaulAuster, the prolific American novelist whose works included The New York Trilogy, has died of complications from lung cancer, a friend...

New York: Paul Auster, the prolific American novelist whose works included "The New York Trilogy," has died of complications from lung cancer, a friend of the novelist told AFP. He was 77.

Auster died on Tuesday evening at his home in Brooklyn surrounded by family, including his wife Siri Hustvedt and daughter Sophie Auster, his friend and fellow author Jacki Lyden said in a statement sent to AFP.

He made his name with noirish, existentialist novels about lonely writers, outsiders and down-and-outers that were a huge hit in Europe particularly.

The author with the soulful, sunken eyes gained cult status in the 1980s and 1990s with his "New York Trilogy" of metaphysical mysteries and his hip film "Smoke," about the lost souls who frequent a Brooklyn tobacco shop.