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.

This week, The Paris Review is celebrating Women in Translation Month! Read on for Elena Ferrante’s Art of Fiction interview, as well as Hiromi Kawakami’s short story “Mogera Wogura” and Iman Mersal’s poem “A Celebration.”

If you enjoy these free interviews, stories, and poems, why not subscribe to read the entire archive? You’ll also get four new issues of the quarterly delivered straight to your door.

Elena Ferrante, Art of Fiction No. 228
Issue no. 212 (Spring 2015)

I don’t think the reader should be indulged as a consumer, because he isn’t one. Literature that indulges the tastes of the reader is a degraded literature. My goal is to disappoint the usual expectations and inspire new ones.

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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.

Toni Morrison. Photo: Angela Radulescu.

The Paris Review meets The New York Review of Books: our summer subscription deal continues! To celebrate, we’re taking a dive into both of our archives for this week’s Redux. Read on for Toni Morrison’s Art of Fiction interview, paired with her 2001 essay “On ‘The Radiance of the King’ ”; Mary McCarthy’s Art of Fiction interview, paired with her 1972 essay “A Guide to Exiles, Expatriates, and Internal Emigrés”; and Ernest Hemingway’s Art of Fiction interview, paired with George Plimpton’s 1980 speech reminiscing about this interview.

If you enjoy these free interviews and essays, why not subscribe to both magazines? From now through the end of August, you’ll pay just $99—35% off—to receive a yearlong subscription to both The Paris Review and The New York Review of Books, as well as complete access to their respective archives. And if you’re already a Paris Review subscriber, never fear—this deal will extend your current subscription, and your new subscription to The New York Review will begin immediately. Read More

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.

This week, The Paris Review is trying to stay cool in summer’s oppressive heat with writing about swimming. Read on for James Laughlin’s Art of Publishing interview, as well as Milo De Angelis’s poem “Gee” and a portfolio featuring art and writing about swimming pools.

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.

James Laughlin, The Art of Publishing No. 1, Part 1
Issue no. 89 (Fall 1983)

INTERVIEWER

That was the summer you met Gertrude Stein.

LAUGHLIN

I met her through a distinguished French professor with a limp, Bernard Faÿ, whom I met that summer at the Salzburg music festival. I used to go swimming every day in the public swimming pool and that’s where I met him. It turned out that one of his best friends was Gertrude Stein.

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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.

Simone de Beauvoir.

In honor of Bastille Day this past Sunday, The Paris Review is returning to its expatriate roots by highlighting some of the many French authors whose work resides within the archive. Read on for Simone de Beauvoir’s Art of Fiction interview, as well as Baudelaire’s poem “Parisian Dream” and Andre de Mandiargues’s brief story “The Bath of Madame Mauriac.”

If you enjoy these free interviews, stories, and poems, why not subscribe to read the entire archive? You’ll also get four new issues of the quarterly delivered straight to your door.

Simone de Beauvoir, The Art of Fiction No. 35
Issue no. 34 (Spring–Summer 1965)

When one has an existentialist view of the world, like mine, the paradox of human life is precisely that one tries to be and, in the long run, merely exists. It’s because of this discrepancy that when you’ve laid your stake on being—and, in a way you always do when you make plans, even if you actually know that you can’t succeed in being—when you turn around and look back on your life, you see that you’ve simply existed.

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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.

Elizabeth Hardwick.

The Paris Review meets The New York Review of Books: our summer subscription deal is here! To celebrate, we’re taking a dive into both our archives for this week’s Redux. Read on for Elizabeth Hardwick’s Art of Fiction interview, paired with her 1969 essay “Reflections on Fiction”; Susan Sontag’s Art of Fiction interview, paired with her essay on Simone Weil; and James Baldwin’s Art of Fiction interview, paired with his 1970 letter to Angela Davis.

If you enjoy these free interviews and essays, why not subscribe to both magazines? From now through the end of August, you’ll pay just $99—that’s 35% off—to receive a yearlong subscription to both The Paris Review and The New York Review of Books, as well as complete access to their respective archives. And if you’re already a Paris Review subscriber, never fear—this deal will extend your current subscription, and your new subscription to The New York Review will begin immediately. Read More

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.

Harry Mathews in Key West, Florida, 2006.

This week at The Paris Review, we’re celebrating the Fourth of July early. Read Harry Mathews’s Art of Fiction interview, as well as Rachel Kushner’s short story “Blanks” and George Bradley’s poem “The 4th of July, and.”

If you enjoy these free interviews, stories, and poems, why not subscribe to read the entire archive? You’ll also get four new issues of the quarterly delivered straight to your door.

Harry Mathews, The Art of Fiction No. 191
Issue no. 180 (Spring 2007)

The ends of my books are also designed in a way that subverts any illusion that what you have become involved in is anything but the book itself … At the end of Tlooth there’s a description of fireworks out of nowhere. This is the conclusion of the book, except apparently nothing is concluded. “The labyrinth of their colors sets a dense clarity against the blankness of the night.” If that doesn’t leave you groping …

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