The Poetics of Identity in Paul Auster’s City of Glass: The Postmodern Reading

The City of Glass by Paul Auster is a very well-known example of metafictionwith its several layers of reality and identity. Even Paul Auster’s himself is a characteras a writer who writes an article about the different identities of a book. Besides, theprotagonist Quinn writes a detective novel that he was also a character. Readers willbe impressed by the very first sight of the first the chapter that the writer Paul Austerand the narrator decide to look for Quinn in Stillman’s networks of identity in the city.The reason for choosing City of Glass is due to the characteristic traits and themes ofthe Postmodernity. The author, Paul Auster seems to us as a good choice to portraythese postmodernist issues and demonstrate how these manifests themselves in textualcontexts, for example by using the main character, Quinn as an actor to deconstruct thegenre of classical mystery novels.

Keywords:

Identity , postmodern , Paul Auster , City , metafiction