Collected Prose

This volume gathers a wide range of prose by the American novelist whose works include The New York Trilogy, The Book of Illusions and Oracle Night. It brings together personal essays, introductions to other writers' books, true accounts, autobiographical pieces, and texts made in partnership with visual artists, along with shorter work first printed in magazines and newspapers. Among the memoir material is The Invention of Solitude.

The subjects are unusually varied. The pieces move from Sir Walter Raleigh and Franz Kafka to Nathaniel Hawthorne, from the tightrope walker Philippe Petit to the conceptual artist Sophie Calle. Other essays turn to the author's own typewriter, the attacks on the World Trade Center, and New York City, which features as a recurring presence.

Taken together, the collection shows how the writer thinks about literature, art, history and the city he lives in, and it offers readers who know his fiction a closer look at the interests behind it.