Rome, 3 May 2024 – Siri Hustvedt, wife of the American writer Paul Austerconfides on social media about his torment after her husband’s deathwho died at the age of 77 from lung cancer.
The words of Paul Auster’s wife
“I was naive, but I had imagined that I would be the one to announce the death of my husband, Paul Auster. He died at home, in a room he loved, the library, a room with books on every wall from floor to ceiling, but also with tall windows that let in light. He died with us, his family, around him, on April 30, 2024 at 6:58 pm. Shortly thereafter, I discovered that before his body was even taken from our house, the news of his death circulated in the media and obituaries had been published.”
The writer Paul Auster, who died at 77, with his wife Siri and the director Almodovar
“We have been deprived of dignity”
“Neither I, nor our daughter Sophie, nor our son-in-law Spencer, nor my sisters, whom Paul loved as if they were his own sisters and who witnessed his death, have had time to process our grave loss. None of us have been able to call or email the people we care about before the online uproar began. We are been deprived of this dignity. I don’t know the full story of what happened, but I know this: it’s wrong”.
Paul Auster’s illness
Auster passed away at the age of 77 due to complications from lung cancer diagnosed in December 2022. The news of the death of the author of the acclaimed “New York Trilogy” was first reported by the “New York Times” in its online edition, which cited the writer friend Jacki Lyden as a source.
“Paul never left Cancerland – continues the post of the novelist’s second wife -. After treatments failed, his oncologist proposed to him palliative chemotherapy, but he refused and asked for hospice care at home. The harms of cancer treatment are experienced by many patients, and some recover, but what the medical world politely calls ‘adverse effects’ easily become a cascading reality of crisis after crisis, caused not by the cancer, but by the treatment. Immunotherapies, which act at the molecular level, can be particularly dangerous. One ‘effect’ may be life-threatening and require drastic intervention, which in turn causes another life-threatening effect, requiring further intervention, and the attacked body becomes increasingly weaker.”
Siri Hustvedt writes again: “Paul had enough. But he never showed, either with words or gestures, a sign of self-pity. His stoic courage and his humor to the end of his life are an example for me. He has said several times that he would like to die telling a joke. I told him it was unlikely, and he smiled.”
