Dan Wickett, proprietor of the fine Emerging Writers Network, has alerted us to this forthcoming goody bag from the Paris Review folks - they have decided to make their treasure trove of interviews (over 10,000 pages) available completely free of charge online.
Going live Monday, November 15th, thanks in part to a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as a donation from Paris Review Foundation director Richard B. Fisher, The Paris Review's DNA of Literature Project will be available on our website, http://www.TheParisReview.org. Founder and former Editor George Plimpton dreamed of a day when anyone-a struggling writer in Texas, an English teacher in Amsterdam, even a subscriber in Central Asia-could easily access this vast literary resource; with the establishment of this online archive that day has finally come. Now, for the first time, you can read, search and download any one or all of over three hundred in-depth interviews with authors (poets, novelists, playwrights, essayists, critics, musicians, and more) whose work set the compass of twentieth-century writing, and continue to do so into the twenty-first century.From the first interview with E.M. Forster, the Writers at Work interviews set a new standard for literary interrogation. Focusing on the intricacies of the writer's process-how they work, when they work, where they work and revise-the interviews provide some of the most revealing self-portraits in literature. Some have credited The Paris Review interviews as the inspiration for successors at both Rolling Stone and Playboy. Now all of these seminal conversations will be available to the public: unedited, fully searchable, and free of charge.
Since 1953 The Paris Review has published the work of the finest writers of the twentieth century; among them are names such as Kerouac and García Márquez, Nobel Laureates, winners of the National Book Award, Pulitzer and Booker Prizes, and, perhaps more intriguingly, amazing fresh talent poised for renown. The magazine celebrated its 50th anniversary last year with the publication of 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, with an introduction by George Plimpton. The New Yorker wrote of that anthology: "What the reader gets is a richly endowed night-table volume that keeps on giving." The Paris Review's DNA of Literature is just this sort of richly endowed volume-this one for the Internet.
The Paris Review's new website will go live on November 10th with two William Styron interviews to coincide with The Paris Review's Fall Revel honoring Styron, to be held at Cipriani, 200 Fifth Avenue in New York City. The remaining interviews from the 1950s will be posted on Monday, November 15th, followed by the rest of the archive as per this schedule:
January 10, 2005: The Complete Paris Review Interviews from the 1960s
February 14, 2005: The Complete Paris Review Interviews from the 1970s
April 4, 2005: The Complete Paris Review Interviews from the 1980s
May 16, 2005: The Complete Paris Review Interviews from the 1990s
July 1, 2005: The roll-out will conclude with the publication of The Paris Review Book of People with Problems (Picador, Trade Paperback Original)
By the way, in case you haven't seen it, Dan recently conducted a roundtable interview of a bunch of litbloggers and, clearly desperate to fill space, he invited TEV. But check out what our betters like Maud, Carrie and Laila have to say.
such great news!
Posted by: apsiegel | November 01, 2004 at 09:41 AM