Final Foster Wallace work found

Foster Wallace started writing The Pale King in 1997

An unfinished novel by David Foster Wallace, the American author of Infinite Jest who committed suicide in 2008, has been found among his papers.

The Pale King is set in an American tax office full of bored employees. The author had been working on the novel for several years before his death.

His American publishers have confirmed the 200-page work will be released in 2010 along with his notes and outlines.

The novel was found two months after the writer's death at the age of 46.

During his lifetime, Foster Wallace published just two novels. His first work, The Broom of the System, was published in 1987 while he was still in college and brought him to national attention.

He also published three acclaimed short story collections and many essays.

New tricks

But it was his 1996, 1000-page extravaganza, Infinite Jest, which cemented his reputation. It has complex plots and setting, copious footnotes, dark humour and a manic energy which won it places on many best-of lists.

Foster Wallace's wife, Karen Green, who discovered the new novel while sorting through the garage where the author worked, says The Pale King is different in style.

Speaking to the New Yorker, which will publish an extract of the work this month, she said: "I think he didn't want to do the old tricks people expected of him. But he had no idea what the new tricks would be."