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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
New York, March 5, 2010—Lorin Stein Named Editor of The Paris Review
Lorin Stein will succeed Philip Gourevitch as the editor of The Paris Review in April of 2010, it was announced today by the board of directors of The Paris Review Foundation.
“Lorin has an uncommon literary sensibility and eye for new talent,” said Antonio Weiss, publisher of the nonprofit quarterly that Time recently called “America’s greatest literary journal.” “The Paris Review has thrived during Philip’s five-year tenure as editor,” Weiss said, “and we look forward to achieving new heights under Lorin’s leadership.”
Mr. Stein, 36, is both an editor and a writer. He has worked at Farrar, Straus and Giroux since 1998. Books edited by Mr. Stein have received the National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Believer Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Mr. Stein’s reviews of fiction and poetry and his translations from French have appeared in The New York Review of Books, Harper’s, the London Review of Books, The New Republic, n+1, and The Salon Guide to Contemporary Fiction.
“The Paris Review is an institution like nothing else in American letters,” Mr. Stein said. “It stands for the newest, the best, the most daring in writing and art, and that’s been the case now for more than fifty years. To be entrusted with that tradition is a true honor.”
Mr. Gourevitch, a prizewinning author and longtime staff writer at The New Yorker, will return to writing full-time. Under his leadership, The Paris Review’s circulation has grown by nearly two hundred percent, advertising revenue has quadrupled, the Review won its first ever National Magazine Award, and the stories, poems, and reportage published in the magazine have received numerous other prizes.
The Paris Review was founded in Paris in 1953 by William Pène du Bois, Thomas H. Guinzburg, Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, John P. C. Train, and George Plimpton, who edited the publication from its inception until his death in 2003. From the first issue—in which William Styron announced the journal’s intention to publish all kinds of writers, “so long as they’re good”—The Paris Review has maintained a balance between open-mindedness and authority, able to take chances on fresh talent while also publishing the best work of established authors. Indeed, the Review’s legendary interview series represents the closest thing contemporary literature has to a canon. The publication has become not just a place for new writing to appear, but a part of American culture. This is the legacy that the new editor will be asked to carry forward.
“So many things about the way we read, write, and publish are in flux at this moment,” said Mr. Stein. “The Paris Review is in a unique position to guide readers through the noise to what the late Terry Southern (a frequent contributor) used to call ‘quality lit.’ The idea of literature as serious fun—that’s what I’m committed to, and it’s always been at the heart of this magazine.”
Note: the annual Paris Review Revel will be held on April 13, 2010, at Cipriani 42nd Street. The event will be chaired by Barry Diller and Diane von Furstenberg and will honor Philip Roth, and this year’s winner of the Plimpton Prize for new fiction will be announced. For additional details on the Revel, please contact Jamie Olsen (jolsen@theparisreview.org or 212-343-1333).
For press inquiries please call 212-343-1333.
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