The Paris Review Interviews, II: Wisdom from the World's Literary Masters

by The Paris Review

Overview

Since The Paris Review was founded in 1953, it has given us invaluable conversations with the greatest writers of our age, vivid self-portraits that are themselves works of finely crafted literature.

From William Faulkner's determination that a great novel takes "ninety-nine percent talent . . . ninety-nine percent discipline . . . ninety-nine percent work," to Gabriel García Márquez's observation that "in the first paragraph, you solve most of the problems with your book," The Paris Review has elicited revelatory and revealing thoughts from our most accomplished novelists, poets, and playwrights. With an introduction by Orhan Pamuk, this volume brings together another rich, varied crop of literary voices, including Toni Morrison, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Graham Greene, James Baldwin, Stephen King, Philip Larkin, Eudora Welty, and more. "

A colossal literary event," as Gary Shteyngart put it, The Paris Review Interviews, II, is an indispensable treasury of wisdom from the world's literary masters.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780312363147
Publisher:	Picador
Publication date:	10/30/2007
Series:	The Paris Review Interviews , #2
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	528
Sales rank:	340,930
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 1.17(d)

About the Author

The Paris Review has published early and important work by Philip Roth, V. S. Naipaul, Jeffrey Eugenides, A. S. Byatt, T. C. Boyle, William T. Vollmann, and many other defining writers of the past half century. Some of the magazine's exceptional stories, poems, and conversations have been collected by Picador in The Paris Review Book of People with Problems as well as The Paris Review Book for Planes, Trains, Elevators, and Waiting Rooms and The Paris Review Book of Heartbreak, Madness, Sex, Love, Betrayal, Outsiders, Intoxication, War, Whimsy, Horrors, God, Death, Dinner, Baseball, Travels, the Art of Writing, and Everything Else in the World Since 1953.

Table of Contents

Introduction by Orhan Pamuk
Graham Greene (1953)
James Thurber (1955)
William Faulkner (1956)
Robert Lowell (1961)
Isaac Bashevis Singer (1968)
Eudora Welty (1972)
John Gardner (1979)
Gabriel Garci´a Ma´rquez (1981)
Philip Larkin (1982)
James Baldwin (1984)
William Gaddis (1987)
Harold Bloom (1991)
Toni Morrison (1993)
Alice Munro (1994)
Peter Carey (2006)
Stephen King (2006)

Editorial Reviews

The Paris Review books should be given out at dinner parties, readings, riots, weddings, galas — shindigs of every shape. And they're perfect for the classroom too, from high schools all the way to MFA programs. In fact, I run a whole semester-long creative writing class based on the interviews. How else would I get the world's greatest living writers, living and dead, to come into the classroom with their words of wisdom, folly and fury? These books are wonderful, provocative, indispensible.” —Colum McCann, novelist and Hunter College professor

“The most remarkable and extensive interviewing project we possess.” —Richard Eder, The New York Times

“A small treasure. The interviews are literary landmarks, and the gossip, humor, ideas, and practical advice dispensed are bracing.” —San Francisco Chronicle

“Utterly absorbing . . . The interviews are all fascinating and often quite funny.” —The Boston Globe

“Groundbreaking, eclectic, indispensable Q&As.” —Elle

“As The Paris Review Interviews reveals, there is an art to the interview and a value to what it brings. . . . In the best interviews, the exchange of question and answer brings the authors to life.” —The Wall Street Journal

“Fascinating interviews . . . [The subjects] discuss their writing and methods with detail and candidness found nowhere else. While lit fans will undoubtedly be satisfied, aspiring authors will glean tremendous insight from these masters of the craft.” —The Plain Dealer (Cleveland)

“The unguarded moment . . . that's the holy grail for any interviewer trying to discover what makes a writer tick. The Paris Review has a long history of delivering such moments in the author interviews it has conducted over the past half century.” —The Seattle Times

“A stimulating, funny, and provocative snapshot of five decades' worth of (mostly) American literary history . . . The resulting conversations are luminous and often revelatory.” —Minneapolis Star-Tribune

“Fascinating . . . This book will intrigue and delight any serious reader or writer. It may even inspire.” —The Times Literary Supplement (London)

“Here is a canon of great minds. . . . A fascinating attempt at getting to the heart of how writers work.” —Financial Times (London)

From the Publisher

Adult/High School
The 16 author interviews in this volume were originally conducted between 1953 and 2006. During these exchanges, some taking more than a day, established authors shared their writing styles and habits; their successes and failures; details about the characters, settings, and plots in their stories; and offered practical advice for beginning writers. William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, John Gardner, and Toni Morrison are among those who shared their thoughts. Young adults will appreciate the details included: Stephen King washed motel linens to support his family while beginning his writing career and James Baldwin delivered sermons as a preacher for three of his teenage years. The book also includes actual manuscripts of the featured authors and brief biographies. Like The Paris Review Interviews, I (Picador, 2006), it is a fascinating read either for pleasure or for research.
—Gregory LumCopyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

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