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Literature

Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews

Since 1953 The Paris Review has asked writers how they actually work. Its interview archive is free to read and one of the best long afternoons on the internet.

TL;DR

The Paris Review’s Art of Fiction and Art of Poetry interviews ask about desks, drafts and daily hours. The full archive sits online, sorted by decade and by form.

Key points

  • The series began in the magazine’s first issue
  • Writers revise their transcripts before publication
  • The archive covers poets, novelists, translators and critics

The first issue of The Paris Review, in 1953, carried an interview with E. M. Forster about how he wrote. The format stuck: long conversations about method, revised by the writer until every answer says what they meant.

Start anywhere. Hemingway on standing up to write, Toni Morrison on writing before dawn, Borges on the pleasures of being read to. The questions are practical, and the answers often turn philosophical anyway.

The archive is free to read online, arranged by decade and by series, from fiction and poetry to translation and the theatre.

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