Paul Auster, the prolific novelist, memoirist and screenwriter who rose to fame in the 1980s with his postmodern reanimation of the noir novel and who endured to become one of the signature New York writers of his generation, died on Tuesday evening at his home in Brooklyn. He was 77. His death, from complications of lung cancer, was confirmed by his wife, the writer Siri Hustvedt. With his hooded