The paper focuses on how the American and European literary traditions interact in the works of Paul Auster and, in particular, on the special way he uses the European literary code in his novel «Invisible». The hermeneutical and comparative approach reveal that Auster - following in the steps of M. Merleau-Ponty - believes verbal self-expression to be the essential attribute of being human. This aesthetic and philosophical concept underlies the genre complexity of his metafictional novel, which combines fictional narrative with “factual” memoirs and diaries. It is shown that in «Invisible» the subtle interplay of truth and fiction, which Paul Auster has been invariably keen to explore in each of his books, is presented through an intricately woven multi-perspective story as a controversy between the American commitment to true-to-life facts and the doubts in the certainty of perception originating in the French existentialism.
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