Writers At Work: The Paris Review Interviews, Second Series

Edited by GeorgePI impton and introduced by Van Wyck Brooks 2Nd SERIES A Penguin Book The Paris Review interviews beganin 1953 and continue today—a unique exploration of contemporarywriters and writing. Recognized as an indispensable adjunct to modernliterature, these interviews are also fascinating in their own right. Through searching questions addressed to great literary artists, they reveal, better than anything else could, the minds and methods behind the published works. As Van Wyck Brooksnoted, “‘the writers draw portraits of themselves.” Here is a sample of whatcritics said about this second volume of Paris Review interviews: “A fresh vision of these writers, from a new direction... these fourteen interviews are personal history atits best.” —Arthur Mizener, The New York Times Book Review “Like its predecessor,this is a book that every would-be or beginning writer ought to read.” —Granville Hicks, Saturday Review “The entries are intelligent; fun to read; an absolute must for any writer, or student of writing; and, simply for the average reader, an unusually vivid and revealing behindthe-scenesvisit with some of the most interesting minds of our time.” —William Hogan, San Francisco Chronicle _ - Cover design by Gail Ash Literary Criticism PENGUIN BOOKS WRITERS AT WORK SECOND SERIES The Paris Review, founded in 1953 by a group of young Americans including Peter Matthiessen, Harold L. Humes, George Plimpton, Thomas Guinzburg, and Donald Hall, has survived for twenty-seven years—a rarity in the literarymagazine field, where publications traditionally last for a few issues and then cease. While the emphasis of The Paris Review’s editors was on publishing creative work rather than nonfiction (among writers who published their first short stories there were Philip Roth, Terry Southern, Evan S. Connell, Samuel Beckett), part of the magazine’s success can be attributed to the public interest in its continuing series of interviews on the craft of writing. Reasoning that it would be preferable to replace the traditional scholarly essay on a given author’s work with an interview conducted with the author himself, the editors found a form which attracted considerable comment—from the very first interview, with E. M. Forster, which appearedin theinitialissue, in which the distinguished author, then considered thegreatest novelist in the English language, divulged why he had not been able to complete a novel since 1926. Since that early interview the magazine has continued to complement its fiction and poetry selection with interviews from a wide range of literary personages, which in sum constitute an authentic and invaluable contribution to the literary history of the past few decades. WRITERS AT WORK The Paris Review Interviews FIRST SERIES Edited, and with an Introduction, by MaLcoLM CoWLEY E. M.Forster Frank O’Connor Francois Mauriac Joyce Cary Robert Penn Warren Alberto Moravia James Thurber Thornton Wilder William Faulkner Georges Simenon Angus Wilson William Styron Truman Capote Francoise Sagan Dorothy Parker Nelson Algren THIRD SERIES Edited by GrEorcE PLimpTonandintroduced by ALFRED Kazin William Carlos Williams Blaise Cendrars Jean Cocteau Louis-Ferdinand Céline Saul Bellow Arthur Miller James Jones Norman Mailer Evelyn Waugh Allen Ginsberg William Burroughs Harold Pinter Lillian Hellman Edward Albee FOURTH SERIES Edited by GeorcE PLimpTon andintroduced by WILFRID SHEED Isak Dinesen Conrad Aiken Robert Graves John DosPassos Vladimir Nabokov Jorge Luis Borges George Seferis John Steinbeck