June 23, 2020 Redux Redux: When They Could Have Been Anything 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. George Saunders. Photo: Chloe Aftel. Courtesy of George Saunders. This week, we’re thinking about fatherhood and Father’s Day. Read on for George Saunders’s Art of Fiction interview, Jonathan Escoffery’s story “Under the Ackee Tree,” and Louise Erdrich’s poem “Birth.” If you enjoy these free interviews, stories, and poems, why not subscribe to The Paris Review and read the entire archive? You’ll also get four new issues of the quarterly delivered straight to your door. 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. George Saunders, The Art of Fiction No. 245 Issue no. 231 (Winter 2019) INTERVIEWER Do you think you’d be a different writer if you hadn’t had children? SAUNDERS For sure. I’m not sure I would have ever published anything. Before we had our kids, I was a decent person, kind of habitually, but nothing felt morally urgent. Then the kids came, and everything suddenly mattered. The world had a moral charge. If I love these guys so much, it stands to reason that every other person in the world has somebody who loves them just as much—or they should have someone who loves them as much. The world was full of consequence. That which helps what you love is good, that which hurts it is bad, and even a small hurt is significant. You see somebody come into the world, tiny and brand new and blameless, and you’re like, That person deserves the best. So, by implication, everybody deserves the best. Read More
June 16, 2020 Redux Redux: In the Latter Days 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. Allen Ginsberg, ca. 1979. Photo: Michiel Hendryckx. This week at The Paris Review, we’re highlighting three archive pieces written by contributors to our new issue. Read on for Allen Ginsberg’s Art of Poetry interview, José Saramago’s “The Tale of the Unknown Island” (as translated by Margaret Jull Costa, subject of the Summer issue’s The Art of Translation No. 7), and Lucille Clifton’s poem “shadows.” If you enjoy these free interviews, stories, and poems, why not subscribe to The Paris Review and read the entire archive? You’ll also get four new issues of the quarterly delivered straight to your door. 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. Allen Ginsberg, The Art of Poetry No. 8 Issue no. 37 (Spring 1966) INTERVIEWER Has there been a time when fear of censorship or similar trouble has made your own expression difficult? GINSBERG This is so complicated a matter. The beginning of the fear with me was, you know, what would my father say to something that I would write. At the time, writing “Howl”—for instance like I assumed when writing it that it was something that could not be published because I wouldn’t want my daddy to see what was in there. About my sex life, being fucked in the ass, imagine your father reading a thing like that, was what I thought. Though that disappeared as soon as the thing was real, or as soon as I manifested my … you know, it didn’t make that much importance finally. That was sort of a help for writing, because I assumed that it wouldn’t be published, therefore I could say anything that I wanted. So literally just for myself or anybody that I knew personally well, writers who would be willing to appreciate it with a breadth of tolerance—in a piece of work like Howl. Who wouldn’t be judging from a moralistic viewpoint but looking for evidences of humanity or secret thought or just actual truthfulness. Read More
June 9, 2020 Redux Redux: The Tempo Primed 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. Dany Laferrière with his eldest daughter, Melissa, in 1985. This week at The Paris Review, we’re reading Black voices from around the world. Read on for Dany Laferrière’s Art of Fiction interview, Wayétu Moore’s “Gbessa” (the first chapter of her novel She Would Be King), 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 and read the entire archive? You’ll also get four new issues of the quarterly delivered straight to your door. 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—which lowers the paywall on six Writers at Work interviews with Black American authors—here, and then sign up for more. Dany Laferrière, The Art of Fiction No. 237 Issue no. 222 (Fall 2017) INTERVIEWER In 2013, you were elected to the Académie française, the first-ever Haitian or Quebecois writer to join their ranks. LAFERRIÈRE Yes, but first they had to sort out whether I was even admissible. You are supposed to be French. It turns out this wasn’t a written rule. At the time the rules were written, they couldn’t even imagine including someone not born in France or a French colony or département, or a naturalized Frenchman. A Haitian in Montreal is none of the above. To be eligible, you also have to live in France—which I did not. So the question became, is it the Académie française as in the French language? Or as in France? The president of the République decided the question—it’s the Académie of the French language. This decision permitted my candidacy to proceed. It was what they call “une belle élection.” I was received with enthusiasm, in the first round of voting. It took Victor Hugo something like four rounds, Voltaire three! Read More
May 26, 2020 Redux Redux: The Heavenly Dolor 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. Janet Malcolm. Photo: © Nina Subin. This week at The Paris Review, we’re thinking about distance, travel, and all the vacations we’re not taking this summer. Read on for Janet Malcolm’s Art of Nonfiction interview, Alejandro Zambra’s short story “Long Distance,” and Kenneth Koch’s poem “To the French Language.” If you enjoy these free interviews, stories, and poems, why not subscribe to The Paris Review and read the entire archive? You’ll also get four new issues of the quarterly delivered straight to your door. 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. Janet Malcolm, The Art of Nonfiction No. 4 Issue no. 196 (Spring 2011) Well, the most obvious attraction of quotation is that it gives you a little vacation from writing—the other person is doing the work. All you have to do is type. Read More
May 19, 2020 Redux Redux: What Kind of Flowers Am I Making 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. Iris Murdoch. A couple of weeks ago, the Redux brought you April showers; now we’re delivering the obligatory May flowers. Read on for Iris Murdoch’s Art of Fiction interview, Jorge Luis Borges’s short story “Funes the Memorious,” and Eileen Myles’s poem “Circus.” If you enjoy these free interviews, stories, and poems, why not subscribe to The Paris Review and read the entire archive? You’ll also get four new issues of the quarterly delivered straight to your door. 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. Iris Murdoch, The Art of Fiction No. 117 Issue no. 115 (Summer 1990) INTERVIEWER Which tends to come first—characters or plot? MURDOCH I think they all start in much the same way, with two or three people in a relationship with a problem. Then there is a story, ordeals, conflicts, a movement from illusion to reality, all that. I don’t think I have any autobiographical tendencies and can’t think of any novel I’ve written that is a copy of my own life. Read More
May 12, 2020 Redux Redux: Landing without Incident 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. Alice Munro. This week at The Paris Review, in honor of Mother’s Day, we’re thinking of motherhood and children and the work behind parenting. Read on for Alice Munro’s Art of Fiction interview, Lorrie Moore’s short story “Terrific Mother,” and Camille Dungy’s poem “The Average Mother Now Spends Twice as Many Hours on Childcare as Did Her Counterpart in 1965, and She Also Spends Three Times as Many Hours Working Outside the Home; or, How to Sing a Song of Sixpence When You’re Really Feeling Wry.” If you enjoy these free interviews, stories, and poems, why not subscribe to The Paris Review and read the entire archive? You’ll also get four new issues of the quarterly delivered straight to your door. 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. Alice Munro, The Art of Fiction No. 137 Issue no. 131 (Summer 1994) INTERVIEWER Doesn’t any young artist, on some level, have to be hard-hearted? MUNRO It’s worse if you’re a woman. I want to keep ringing up my children and saying, Are you sure you’re all right? I didn’t mean to be such a . . . Which of course would make them furious because it implies that they’re some kind of damaged goods. Some part of me was absent for those children, and children detect things like that. Not that I neglected them, but I wasn’t wholly absorbed. When my oldest daughter was about two, she’d come to where I was sitting at the typewriter, and I would bat her away with one hand and type with the other. I’ve told her that. This was bad because it made her the adversary to what was most important to me. I feel I’ve done everything backwards: this totally driven writer at the time when the kids were little and desperately needed me. And now, when they don’t need me at all, I love them so much. I moon around the house and think, There used to be a lot more family dinners. Read More