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0120120903On January 3, 2011, exactly one month before his 64th birthday, Paul Auster sat down and wrote the first entry of Winter Journal, his unorthodox examination of his own life as seen through the history of his body.

Composed in the manner of a musical fugue, the journal advances from one autobiographical fragment to the next jumping backward and forward in time as the various themes intersect, bounce off one another, and ultimately merge in a great chorus of multiple voices, of one voice multiplied into many. Auster takes us from childhood to the brink of old age as he summons forth a universe of physical sensation, of pleasures and pains, moving from the awakening sexual desire as an adolescent to the ever deepening bonds of married love, from the shocks of violent accidents to an account of his mother's sudden death in 2002, from meditations on eating and sleeping to the 'scalding, epiphanic moment of clarity' in 1978 that set him on a new course as a writer. Winter Journal is a book that looks straight into the heart of what it means to be alive.

Today Paul Auster takes his cue from his imminent 64th birthday to examine his life in the present and as a young man embarking for life in Paris. Read by Garrick Hagon.

Produced by: David Roper

A Heavy Entertainment Limited Production for BBC Radio 4.

About to turn 64, Paul Auster looks back on life as a young man embarking for Paris.

0220120904On January 3, 2011, exactly one month before his 64th birthday Paul Auster sat down and wrote the first entry of Winter Journal, his unorthodox examination of his own life as seen through the history of his body.

Composed in the manner of a musical fugue, the journal advances from one autobiographical fragment to the next, jumping backward and forward in time as the various themes intersect, bounce off one another, and ultimately merge in a great chorus of multiple voices, of one voice multiplied into many. Auster takes us from childhood to the brink of old age as he summons forth a universe of physical sensation, of pleasures and pains, moving from the awakening sexual desire as an adolescent to the ever deepening bonds of married love, from the shocks of violent accidents to an account of his mother's sudden death in 2002, from meditations on eating and sleeping to the 'scalding, epiphanic moment of clarity' in 1978 that set him on a new course as a writer. Winter Journal is a book that looks straight into the heart of what it means to be alive.

In today's episode Paul Auster muses on how he always gets lost and finds that a piano in a newly-rented Paris apartment presents surprising moral dilemmas. Read by Garrick Hagon.

Produced by David Roper

A Heavy Entertainment Limited Production for BBC Radio 4.

A piano in Paul Auster's apartment has a surprising effect on his life there.

0320120905Read by Garrick Hagon.

On January 3, 2011, exactly one month before his 64th birthday, Paul Auster sat down and wrote the first entry of Winter Journal, his unorthodox examination of his own life as seen through the history of his body.

Composed in the manner of a musical fugue the journal advances from one autobiographical fragment to the next, jumping backward and forward in time as the various themes intersect, bounce off one another, and ultimately merge in a great chorus of multiple voices, of one voice multiplied into many. Auster takes us from childhood to the brink of old age as he summons forth a universe of physical sensation, of pleasures and pains, moving from the awakening sexual desire as an adolescent to the ever deepening bonds of married love, from the shocks of violent accidents to an account of his mother's sudden death in 2002, from meditations on eating and sleeping to the 'scalding, epiphanic moment of clarity' in 1978 that set him on a new course as a writer. Winter Journal is a book that looks straight into the heart of what it means to be alive.

In today's episode Paul Auster charts the course of his life through the addresses he's lived at and the lives he has lived in each of them.

Produced by David Roper

A Heavy Entertainment Limited Production for BBC Radio 4.

Paul Auster explores memories of homes, from a bare New York apartment to the family home.

0420120906On January 3, 2011, exactly one month before his 64th birthday, Paul Auster sat down and wrote the first entry of Winter Journal, his unorthodox examination of his own life as seen through the history of his body.

Composed in the manner of a musical fugue, the journal advances from one autobiographical fragment to the next, jumping backward and forward in time as the various themes intersect, bounce off one another, and ultimately merge in a great chorus of multiple voices, of one voice multiplied into many. Auster takes us from childhood to the brink of old age as he summons forth a universe of physical sensation, of pleasures and pains, moving from the awakening sexual desire as an adolescent to the ever deepening bonds of married love, from the shocks of violent accidents to an account of his mother's sudden death in 2002, from meditations on eating and sleeping to the 'scalding, epiphanic moment of clarity' in 1978 that set him on a new course as a writer. Winter Journal is a book that looks straight into the heart of what it means to be alive.

Today, a phone call brings surprising news. Paul Auster's mother has suddenly died. He considers her life and feelings for her, the events he didn't fully understand as a boy and his understanding of them with the distance of adulthood.

Read by Garrick Hagon.

Produced by: David Roper

A Heavy Entertainment Limited Production for BBC Radio 4.

When his mother suddenly dies, Paul examines her life with the hindsight of adulthood.

05 LAST20120907On January 3, 2011, exactly one month before his 64th birthday, Paul Auster sat down and wrote the first entry of Winter Journal, his unorthodox examination of his own life as seen through the history of his body.

Composed in the manner of a musical fugue, the journal advances from one autobiographical fragment to the next, jumping backward and forward in time as the various themes intersect, bounce off one another, and ultimately merge in a great chorus of multiple voices, of one voice multiplied into many. Auster takes us from childhood to the brink of old age as he summons forth a universe of physical sensation, of pleasures and pains, moving from the awakening sexual desire as an adolescent to the ever deepening bonds of married love, from the shocks of violent accidents to an account of his mother's sudden death in 2002, from meditations on eating and sleeping to the 'scalding, epiphanic moment of clarity' in 1978 that set him on a new course as a writer. Winter Journal is a book that looks straight into the heart of what it means to be alive.

In today's final episode of Winter Journal Paul Auster examines his 64-year-old self and looks forward rather than back on a life still to be lived. Read by Garrick Hagon.

Produced by: David Roper

A Heavy Entertainment Limited Production for BBC Radio 4.

Paul Auster embraces growing old with no recriminations, not nostalgic but looking forward