Paul Auster syntyi Newarkissa, New Jerseyssä <ref name=JPost>Freeman, John. [http://fr.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1207159751661&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull "At home with Siri and Paul"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110309124933/http://fr.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1207159751661&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull|date=2011-03-09 }}, ''[[The Jerusalem Post]]'', April 3, 2008. Accessed September 19, 2008. "Like so many people in New York, both of them are spiritual refugees of a sort. Auster hails from Newark, New Jersey, and Hustvedt from Minnesota, where she was raised the daughter of a professor, among a clan of very tall siblings."</ref> keskiluokkaiseen puolan[[Juutalaiset|juutalaiseen]] perheeseen <ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GboRwPZNXzkC&pg=PA214&dq=Queenie+Bogat+Samuel+Auster&hl=en |title=Conversations with Paul Auster - Google Books |publisher=Books.google.ca |date= |accessdate=2013-04-20}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Taub|first1=Michael|last2=Shatzky|first2=Joel|title=Contemporary Jewish-American Novelists: A Bio-critical Sourcebook| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=X3HN2tYhR0cC&pg=PA95&lpg=PA95&dq#v=auster&f=false| year=1997| publisher=Greenwood|pages=13–20|isbn=978-0313294624}}</ref>
Auster opiskeli [[kirjallisuustiede|kirjallisuutta]] [[Columbian yliopisto]]ssa. Opiskeluaikoinaan hän tutustui ranskalaisiin runoilijoihin. Austerin muita kirjallisia esikuvia ovat olleet [[Edgar Allan Poe]], [[Nathaniel Hawthorne]], [[Herman Melville]], [[Michel de Montaigne]], [[Ludwig Wittgenstein]], [[Maurice Merleau-Ponty]] ja [[Samuel Beckett]].
