The Paris Review Interviews : Volume 1

How do great writers do it? From James M. Cain's hard-nosed observation that 'writing a novel is like working on foreign policy. There are problems to be solved. It's not all inspirational,' to Joan Didion's account of how she composes a book—'I constantly retype my own sentences. Every day I go back to page one and just retype what I have. It gets me into a rhythm'—the Paris Review has elicited some of the most revelatory and revealing thoughts from the literary masters of our age.

For more than half a century, the magazine has spoken with most of our leading novelists, poets, and playwrights, and the interviews themselves have come to be recognised as classic works of literature, an essential and definitive record of the writing life.

They have won the coveted George Polk Award and have been a contender for the Pulitzer Prize. Now, Paris Review editor Philip Gourevitch introduces an entirely original selection of sixteen of the most celebrated interviews. Often startling, always engaging, these encounters contain an immense scope of intelligence, personality, experience, and wit from the likes of Elizabeth Bishop, Ernest Hemingway, Truman Capote, Rebecca West, and Billy Wilder.

This is an indispensable book for all writers and readers.

Praise for The Paris Review Interviews:

'This is a landmark book...crammed with the sort of originality and verve that makes a reviewer want to retreat into clichés

Daily Telegraph

‘For anyone unfamiliar with the writers before reading about them here…these are tantalising introductions…Read together, the interviews weave a loose, living history of 20th-century American literature and society…every lover of reading, every student of writing or journalism will find bright moments.’

Sydney Morning Herald

'Reading these interviews makes one realise how boringly mediated most newspaper interviews are.'

Spectator

‘Every one of the interviews in Canongate’s new anthology…rewards the reader.'

Australian