The Paris Review
The Paris Review is a quarterly English-language literary magazine established in Paris in 1953[1] by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton. In its first five years, The Paris Review published works by Jack Kerouac, Philip Larkin, V. S. Naipaul, Philip Roth, Terry Southern, Adrienne Rich, Italo Calvino, Samuel Beckett, Nadine Gordimer, Jean Genet, and Robert Bly.
Editor
Emily Stokes
Quarterly
Spring, 1953
The Paris Review Foundation
United States
New York City (since 1973)
English
The Review's "Writers at Work" series includes interviews with Ezra Pound, Ernest Hemingway, T. S. Eliot, Jorge Luis Borges, Ralph Ellison, William Faulkner, Thornton Wilder, Robert Frost, Pablo Neruda, William Carlos Williams, and Vladimir Nabokov, among many hundreds of others. Literary critic Joe David Bellamy called the series "one of the single most persistent acts of cultural conservation in the history of the world."[2]
The headquarters of The Paris Review moved from Paris to New York City in 1973. Plimpton edited the Review from its founding until his death in 2003. Brigid Hughes took over as "executive editor" (she declined to use the title "editor" out of respect for Plimpton)[3] from 2003 to 2005.[4] She was followed by Philip Gourevitch from 2005 to 2010, Lorin Stein from 2010 to 2017,[5] and Emily Nemens from April 2018 until March 2021, when Emily Stokes was named editor.[6][7]
Prints and posters[edit]
In 1964, The Paris Review initiated a series of prints and posters by contemporary artists with the goal of establishing an ongoing relationship between the worlds of writing and art[29]—Drue Heinz, then publisher of The Paris Review, shared credit with Jane Wilson for initiating the series. In the half century since its inception, the series has featured notable New York artists of the postwar decades, including Louise Bourgeois, Willem de Kooning, David Hockney, Helen Frankenthaler, Keith Haring, Robert Indiana, Jimmy Ernst, Alex Katz, Ellsworth Kelly, Sol LeWitt, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Motherwell, Louise Nevelson, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, Larry Rivers, James Rosenquist, Ed Ruscha and Andy Warhol.[29]
The series, suspended after George Plimpton's death in 2003, was relaunched in 2012 with a print by Donald Baechler.
Three prizes are awarded annually by the editors of The Paris Review: the Paris Review Hadada, the Plimpton Prize, and the Terry Southern Prize for Humor. Winning selections are celebrated at the annual Spring Revel. No application form is required. Instead, winners are selected from the stories and poems published the previous year in The Paris Review.
Spring Revel[edit]
The Paris Review Spring Revel is an annual gala held in celebration of American writers and writing.[32][33] The Revel "brings together leading figures and patrons of American arts and letters from throughout New York to pay tribute to distinguished writers at different stages of their careers".[34] Proceeds from the Spring Revel go directly toward The Paris Review Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization established by the co-founders in 2000 to ensure the future of The Paris Review.
The 2010 Spring Revel took place on April 13, 2010 and presented Philip Roth with the Hadada.[35]
The 2011 Spring Revel took place on April 12, 2011, chaired by Yves-André Istel and Kathleen Begala.[34] Robert Redford presented the Hadada to James Salter. The 2011 Revel also featured Ann Beattie presenting the Plimpton Prize for Fiction and Fran Lebowitz presenting the inaugural Terry Southern Prize for Humor. In 2012, Robert Silvers received the Hadada.[36] In 2013, it was Paula Fox. In 2014, Frederick Seidel received the prize.[37] In 2015, it was Norman Rush.[38] In 2016, Errol Morris presented Lydia Davis with the Hadada[39] and 2017 Edward Hirsch presented Richard Howard with the Hadada.[40] In 2018, Joy Williams received the prize from John Waters.[41] Fran Lebowitz presented Deborah Eisenberg with the Hadada in 2019.[42]