November 3, 2020 Redux Redux: A World Awash in Truth By The Paris Review Every week, the editors of The Paris Review lift the paywall on a selection of interviews, stories, poems, and more from the magazine’s archive. You can have these unlocked pieces delivered straight to your inbox every Sunday by signing up for the Redux newsletter. Claudia Rankine. Photo: John Lucas. Courtesy of Graywolf Press. This week, The Paris Review is dwelling on politics, literature, and the U.S. election. Read on for Claudia Rankine’s Art of Poetry interview, Matthew Baker’s short story “Why Visit America,” and Martha Hollander’s poem “Election Night.” If you enjoy these free interviews, stories, and poems, why not subscribe to The Paris Review? Or take advantage of our new subscription bundle, bringing you four issues of the print magazine, access to our full sixty-seven-year digital archive, and our new TriBeCa tote for only $69 (plus free shipping!). And for as long as we’re flattening the curve, The Paris Review will be sending out a new weekly newsletter, The Art of Distance, featuring unlocked archival selections, dispatches from the Daily, and efforts from our peer organizations. Read the latest edition here, and then sign up for more. Claudia Rankine, The Art of Poetry No. 102 Issue no. 219, Winter 2016 The relationship between public engagement and private thought are inseparable for me. I worked on Citizen on and off for almost ten years. I wrote the first piece in response to Hurricane Katrina. I was profoundly moved by the events in New Orleans as they unfolded. John and I taped the CNN coverage of the storm without any real sense of what we intended to do with the material. I didn’t think, obviously, that I was working on Citizen. But for me, there is no push and pull. There’s no private world that doesn’t include the dynamics of my political and social world. When I am working privately, my process includes a sense of what is happening in the world. Read More
October 27, 2020 Redux Redux: Of Time Accelerated By The Paris Review Every week, the editors of The Paris Review lift the paywall on a selection of interviews, stories, poems, and more from the magazine’s archive. You can have these unlocked pieces delivered straight to your inbox every Sunday by signing up for the Redux newsletter. Chinua Achebe. This week, we’re highlighting work by Nigerian writers in the archive and the current issue. Read on for Chinua Achebe’s Art of Fiction interview, Eloghosa Osunde’s short story “Good Boy,” and Wole Soyinka’s poem “Your Logic Frightens Me Mandela.” If you enjoy these free interviews, stories, and poems, why not subscribe to The Paris Review? Or take advantage of our new subscription bundle, bringing you four issues of the print magazine, access to our full sixty-seven-year digital archive, and our new TriBeCa tote for only $69 (plus free shipping!). And for as long as we’re flattening the curve, The Paris Review will be sending out a new weekly newsletter, The Art of Distance, featuring unlocked archival selections, dispatches from the Daily, and efforts from our peer organizations. Read the latest edition here, and then sign up for more. Chinua Achebe, The Art of Fiction No. 139 Issue no. 133, Winter 1994 INTERVIEWER How much do you think writers should engage themselves in public issues? ACHEBE I don’t lay down the law for anybody else. But I think writers are not only writers, they are also citizens. They are generally adults. My position is that serious and good art has always existed to help, to serve, humanity. Not to indict. I don’t see how art can be called art if its purpose is to frustrate humanity. To make humanity uncomfortable, yes. But intrinsically to be against humanity, that I don’t take. Read More
October 20, 2020 Redux Redux: Sightseer in Oblivion By The Paris Review Every week, the editors of The Paris Review lift the paywall on a selection of interviews, stories, poems, and more from the magazine’s archive. You can have these unlocked pieces delivered straight to your inbox every Sunday by signing up for the Redux newsletter. Truman Capote, 1957. Sketch: Rosalie Seidler. This week at The Paris Review, no one wants to get out of bed. Read on for Truman Capote’s Art of Fiction interview, Shruti Swamy’s short story “A House Is a Body,” and Thomas Lux’s poem “Sleepmask Dithyrambic.” If you enjoy these free interviews, stories, and poems, why not subscribe to The Paris Review? Or, to celebrate the students and teachers in your life, why not gift our special subscription deal featuring a copy of Writers at Work around the World for 50% off? And for as long as we’re flattening the curve, The Paris Review will be sending out a new weekly newsletter, The Art of Distance, featuring unlocked archival selections, dispatches from the Daily, and efforts from our peer organizations. Read the latest edition here, and then sign up for more. Read More
October 13, 2020 Redux Redux: X Sends Regards By The Paris Review Every week, the editors of The Paris Review lift the paywall on a selection of interviews, stories, poems, and more from the magazine’s archive. You can have these unlocked pieces delivered straight to your inbox every Sunday by signing up for the Redux newsletter. Louise Glück. Photo: © Katherine Wolkoff. This week at The Paris Review, we’re highlighting the work of Louise Glück, winner of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature. Read on for her poems “The Denial of Death,” “A Night in Spring,” and “A Warm Day.” If you enjoy these free interviews, stories, and poems, why not subscribe to The Paris Review? Or, to celebrate the students and teachers in your life, why not gift our special subscription deal featuring a copy of Writers at Work around the World for 50% off? And for as long as we’re flattening the curve, The Paris Review will be sending out a new weekly newsletter, The Art of Distance, featuring unlocked archival selections, dispatches from the Daily, and efforts from our peer organizations. Read the latest edition here, and then sign up for more. The Denial of Death By Louise Glück Issue no. 226, Fall 2018 I had left my passport at an inn we stayed at for a night or so whose name I couldn’t remember. This is how it began. The next hotel would not receive me. A beautiful hotel, in an orange grove, with a view of the sea. How casually you accepted the room that would have been ours, and, later, how merrily you stood on the balcony, pelting me with foil-wrapped chocolates. The next day you resumed the journey we would have taken together. The concierge procured an old blanket for me. By day, I sat outside the kitchen. By night, I spread my blanket among the orange trees. Every day was the same, except for the weather. After a time, the staff took pity on me. A busboy would bring me food from the evening meal, the odd potato or bit of lamb. Sometimes a postcard arrived. On the front, glossy landmarks and works of art. Once, a mountain covered in snow. After a month or so there was a postscript: X sends regards … Read More
October 6, 2020 Redux Redux: The Things between Me and Time By The Paris Review Every week, the editors of The Paris Review lift the paywall on a selection of interviews, stories, poems, and more from the magazine’s archive. You can have these unlocked pieces delivered straight to your inbox every Sunday by signing up for the Redux newsletter. Grace Paley. This week at The Paris Review, the clock is ticking. Read on for Grace Paley’s Art of Fiction interview, V. S. Naipaul’s short story “My Aunt Gold Teeth,” and David Rokeah’s poem “Between Me and Time.” If you enjoy these free interviews, stories, and poems, why not subscribe to The Paris Review? Or, to celebrate the students and teachers in your life, why not gift our special subscription deal featuring a copy of Writers at Work around the World for 50% off? And for as long as we’re flattening the curve, The Paris Review will be sending out a new weekly newsletter, The Art of Distance, featuring unlocked archival selections, dispatches from the Daily, and efforts from our peer organizations. Read the latest edition here, and then sign up for more. Grace Paley, The Art of Fiction No. 131 Issue no. 124, Fall 1992 INTERVIEWER What were you doing before you became a published writer? GRACE PALEY I was working part time. I was hanging out a lot. I was kind of lazy. I had my kids when I was about twenty-six, twenty-seven. I took them to the park in the afternoons. Thank God I was lazy enough to spend all that time in Washington Square Park. I say lazy but of course it was kind of exhausting running after two babies. Still, looking back I see the pleasure of it. That’s when I began to know women very well—as co-workers, really. I had a part-time job as a typist up at Columbia. In fact, when I began to write stories, I typed some up there, and some in the PTA office of P.S. 41 on Eleventh Street. If I hadn’t spent that time in the playground, I wouldn’t have written a lot of those stories. That’s pretty much how I lived. And then we had our normal family life—struggles and hard times. That takes up a lot of time, hard times. Uses up whole days. Read More
September 29, 2020 Redux Redux: Leaves Fall Off of the Trees By The Paris Review Every week, the editors of The Paris Review lift the paywall on a selection of interviews, stories, poems, and more from the magazine’s archive. You can have these unlocked pieces delivered straight to your inbox every Sunday by signing up for the Redux newsletter. Ali Smith, with Leo, in Cambridge, 2003. This week at The Paris Review, autumn has arrived. Read on for Ali Smith’s Art of Fiction interview, Robert Walser’s work of fiction “From the Essays of Fritz Kocher,” and Evie Shockley’s poem “ex patria.” If you enjoy these free interviews, stories, and poems, why not subscribe to The Paris Review? Or, to celebrate the students and teachers in your life, why not gift our special subscription deal featuring a copy of Writers at Work around the World for 50% off? And for as long as we’re flattening the curve, The Paris Review will be sending out a new weekly newsletter, The Art of Distance, featuring unlocked archival selections, dispatches from the Daily, and efforts from our peer organizations. Read the latest edition here, and then sign up for more. Ali Smith, The Art of Fiction No. 236 Issue no. 221, Summer 2017 INTERVIEWER Were you pleased to see Autumn referred to as “the first serious Brexit novel”? SMITH Indifferent. What’s the point of art, of any art, if it doesn’t let us see with a little bit of objectivity where we are? All the way through this book I’ve used the step-back motion, which I’ve borrowed from Dickens—the way that famous first paragraph of A Tale of Two Cities creates space by being its own opposite—to allow readers the space we need to see what space we’re in. Read More