The Paris Review by The Paris Review

03.20.2024

S4E12 | Concerning the Future of Souls, by Joy Williams

The Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist Joy Williams reads entries from “Concerning the Future of Souls” (issue no. 247, Spring 2024), a collection of stories following Azrael, the angel of death and transporter of souls. This episode was produced...

03.13.2024

S4E11 | Trial Run

In Zach Williams’s “Trial Run” (issue no. 239, Spring 2022), an employee is subjected to two coworkers’ conspiracy theories when their office is targeted by an anonymous white supremacist hacker. The story is read by Michael Chernus, Danny Mastrogiorgio, and...

02.21.2024

S4E10 | Foley’s Pond

“We were thirteen and conspiratorial and what was said is now out of reach.” Jim Fletcher reads Peter Orner’s “Foley’s Pond” (issue no. 202, Fall 2012), a quietly devastating short story about the effects of a tragic accident on a...

02.14.2024

S4E9 | “The Victim” by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki

The legendary actor George Takei reads one of the oldest stories in the Review’s archive. Published by the magazine in 1957, “The Victim” is Ivan Morris’s English translation of the Japanese author Jun'ichirō Tanizaki’s 1910 literary debut. This episode was produced by...

01.24.2024

S4E8 | The Walk Book

Sean Thor Conroe shares entries from “The Walk Book”—his meticulous, funny travelogue about his 2014 attempt to walk across the United States—including some rain-soaked field recordings. This episode was produced by Helena de Groot and John DeLore, and was sound-designed by...

01.17.2024

S4E7 | Olga Tokarczuk’s Divine Cosmos

The Nobel Prize–winning Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk discusses the souls of animals, discovering feminism, and her home in the village of Krajanów where she was once neighbors with “three different translators of William Blake in an excerpt from her Art...

01.10.2024

S4E6 | About Ed

“We needed erotic touch to tell us what we were.” Robert Glück reads from About Ed, a memoir about his relationship with his former partner Ed Aulerich-Sugai. The performance is paired with excerpts from his Art of Fiction interview with...

12.20.2023

S4E5 | Scenes from an Open Marriage

“Nothing reifies a romance like proximate disaster.” Seated at her kitchen table, Jean Garnett reads her essay “Scenes from an Open Marriage” and chats with the Review’s deputy editor, Lidija Haas, and senior producer of the podcast, Helena de Groot. This...

12.13.2023

S4E4 | Bob Ross Paints Your Portrait

“The only colors we’re going to use will be blacker than most blacks. Mm-kay.” Terrance Hayes reads his poem, “Bob Ross Paints Your Portrait.” An homage to the iconic host of the PBS show The Joy of Painting, and an...

11.22.2023

S4E3 | The I is Made of Paper

The Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Sharon Olds discusses sex, religion, and writing poems that "women were definitely not supposed to write,” in an excerpt from her Art of Poetry interview with Jessica Laser. Olds also reads three of her poems: “Sisters...

11.15.2023

S4E2 | The Same IKEA Bed

A stealth poetry reading inside a bustling IKEA. Poet Maggie Millner reads her own poem (Issue no. 239, Spring 2022), as well as two more from the archive: Toi Dericotte’s “Bird” (Issue No. 124, Fall 1992) and Rainer Maria Rilke’s...

11.15.2023

S4E1 | “This is Everything There Will Ever Be” by Rivers Solomon

Actor, producer, and screenwriter Lena Waithe reads Rivers Solomon’s “This Is Everything There Will Ever Be,” which was published in issue no. 243 of the Review. The story, dark and uplifting by turns, is a portrait of “just another late-forties...

11.01.2023

Season 4 Trailer: The Paris Review Podcast

The Paris Review Podcast returns with a new season on November 15, 2023. Selections of interviews, fiction, essays, and poetry from America’s most legendary literary quarterly, brought to life in sound. Catch up now on earlier seasons & then tune in November...

11.24.2021

S3E5 | A Strange Way to Live (with Phoebe Bridgers, Connor Ratliff, Joan Didion, Natalie-Scenters Zapico, Bud Smith, Jericho Brown, Jessica Hecht, Avery Trufelman)

Our Season 3 finale opens with “The Trick Is to Pretend,” a poem by Natalie Scenters-Zapico, read by the singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridgers: “I climb knowing the only way down / is by falling.” The actor Jessica Hecht plays Joan Didion...

11.17.2021

S3E4 | Form and Formlessness (with Rachel Cusk, Aisha Sabatini Sloan, Allan Gurganus, Deborah Landau)

In an essay specially commissioned for the podcast, Aisha Sabatini Sloan describes rambling around Paris with her father, Lester Sloan, a longtime staff photographer for Newsweek, and a glamorous woman who befriends them. In an excerpt from The Art of...

11.10.2021

S3E3 | Without Malice, Without Triumph (with Edward P Jones, Hilton Als, Amber Gray)

This episode focuses exclusively on the work of fiction writer Edward P. Jones, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Known World and All Aunt Hagar’s Children, and subject of the Art of Fiction no. 222. The episode opens with an excerpt...

11.03.2021

S3E2 | A Gift for Burning (with Monica Youn, Molly McCully Brown, Venita Blackburn, George Saunders)

George Saunders, in an excerpt from his Art of Fiction interview, explains how his teenage job delivering fast food prepared him to write fiction; Monica Youn reads her poem “Goldacre,” which tells the truth about Twinkies; Molly McCully Brown reads...

10.27.2021

S3E1 | A Memory of the Species (with Robert Frost, Yohanca Delgado, Antonella Anedda)

Robert Frost defines modern poetry in an excerpt from his Art of Poetry interview; the Italian poet Antonella Anedda discusses her poem “Historiae 2” with her translator Susan Stewart before the American vocal ensemble Tenores de Aterúe re-imagines the poem...

10.04.2021

Season 3 Trailer: The Paris Review Podcast Returns

The celebrated podcast returns for its third season. Join us on an audio odyssey through the pages of The Paris Review, featuring the best fiction, poetry, interviews, and archival recordings, from the world's most legendary literary quarterly. This season features fiction...

04.23.2021

Celebrating N. Scott Momaday

A special bonus episode of The Paris Review Podcast celebrating N. Scott Momaday, the winner of the Review’s 2021 Hadada Award, which recognizes a distinguished member of the writing community who has made a strong and unique contribution to literature....

05.07.2020

A Tree Grows Live in Brooklyn (A Live Recording at On Air Fest 2020)

A special bonus episode, recorded live at On Air Fest on March 8, 2020 (just before social distancing sent everyone home), featuring a crowded room of lovely human beings enjoying an immersive live performance of The Paris Review Podcast. The show...

11.20.2019

S2E5 | Odd Planets (with Charlotte Rampling, Simone de Beauvoir, Danez Smith, Griffin Dunne, Henry Green, Sarah Manguso, and WS Merwin)

The final episode of Season 2. The incomparable Charlotte Rampling reenacts Simone de Beauvoir’s classic 1965 Paris Review interview; Danez Smith reads their poem “my bitch!”; Sarah Manguso shares her lyric essay “Oceans,” about moving to California, cancer, and writing...

11.13.2019

S2E4 | Lift and Fall (with Tennessee Williams, Charles Wright, Bill Callahan, J.M. Holmes, Anne Sexton, and Jenny Slate)

Singer/songwriter Bill Callahan reads “Laguna Blues,” a poem by former U.S. poet laureate Charles Wright; J.M. Holmes reads his Pushcart Prize–winning story “What’s Wrong with You? What’s Wrong with Me?”; seminal dramatist Tennessee Williams describes his daily rituals in an...

11.06.2019

S2E3 | Memory, Rich Memory (with Dylan Thomas, Salman Rushdie, Sharon Olds, Alexandra Kleeman, Devendra Banhart, and Paulé Bártón)

Salman Rushdie reads an apologetic letter written by Dylan Thomas to his editor; poet Sharon Olds identifies “The Solution” to America’s problems; Alexandra Kleeman reads her haunting story “Fairy Tale”; and singer/songwriter Devendra Banhart reads the little-known legend of “The...

10.30.2019

S2E2 | Making Light (with Philip Roth, Jason Alexander, Lucille Clifton, Quincy Tyler Bernstine, Brenda Shaughnessy)

Actor Quincy Tyler Bernstine revisits one of the most unsettling scandals of the nineties with her reading of Lucille Clifton’s poem “lorena”; Jason Alexander brings Philip Roth’s early story “The Conversion of the Jews” to vivid life; and poet Brenda...

10.23.2019

S2E1 | Before the Light (with Toni Morrison, Molly Ringwald, Mary Terrier, Alex Dimitrov)

Legendary novelist and Nobel laureate Toni Morrison explains why beauty is absolutely necessary in an interview from the magazine’s archives; Molly Ringwald channels adolescent grief in her reading of “Guests,” a story by Mary Terrier; and poet Alex Dimitrov reads...

09.26.2019

Season 2 Trailer: The Paris Review Podcast Returns

The celebrated podcast from the legendary literary magazine returns! Join us for new audio adventures through The Paris Review's fiction, poetry, interviews, archival recordings, and sonic imaginings with the likes of Simone de Beauvoir, Tennessee Williams, and today's leading writers. Featuring readings...

05.23.2018

Time Has Stood Still: Philip Roth (1933–2018)

Before Philip Roth was an American icon, he published one of his first short stories in The Paris Review in 1958. In 2010 he received the Hadada, our award for lifetime achievement. Here is his acceptance speech.

02.21.2018

S1E12 | Thunder, They Told Her (with Jamaica Kincaid, James Salter, Dick Cavett, Sadie Stein, Frederick Seidel, Robert Bly, and Caitlin Youngquist)

The final episode of Season 1. Jamaica Kincaid in conversation and reading her short story WHAT I HAVE BEEN DOING LATELY; James Salter’s story BANGKOK read by Dick Cavett; Sadie Stein encounters a literary specter on the 1 Train; Frederick...

02.14.2018

S1E11 | Tomorrow's Reason (with Hunter S. Thompson, George Plimpton, Terry McDonell, Pablo Neruda, Antonio Gueudinot, Amie Barrodale, Paul Heesang Miller)

Shotguns, peacocks, golf, acid. Editor Terry McDonell recounts his 1984 visit, along with George Plimpton, to Hunter S. Thompson's home in Colorado, including never-before-heard archival tape; a poem by Pablo Neruda, translated by Alastair Reid and read by Antonio Gueudinot;...

01.31.2018

S1E10 | The Occasional Dream (with Frank O'Hara, David Sedaris, Joy Williams, Mary-Louise Parker, Roberto Bolaño, Dakota Johnson, John Ashbery, Steve Gunn, John Jermiah Sullivan, Robert Johnson)

David Sedaris reads Frank O'Hara; Mary-Louis Parker reads Joy Williams; Dakota Johnson reads Roberto Bolaño; John Ashbery is scored by musician Steve Gunn; and The Paris Review's Southern Editor John Jeremiah Sullivan sings Robert Johnson. "A True Account of Talking to...

01.24.2018

S1E9 | God, Etc. (with Jesse Eisenberg, Benjamin Nugent, Rowan Ricardo Phillips, Kristen Dombek)

A frat boy encounters the divine in Benjamin Nugent's story GOD, performed by Jesse Eisenberg; Rowan Ricardo Phillips examines the difference between heaven and paradise in his poem KINGDOM COME; and Kristin Dombek sends us a LETTER FROM WILLIAMSBURG.

01.17.2018

S1E8 | Questionable Behavior (with Dorothy Parker, Stockard Channing, Anna Sale, Alexia Arthurs, Helga Davis, Blair Fuller, John Guare, Idra Novey, Elena Wilkinson, Jeff Gleaves)

Stockard Channing and Anna Sale recreate the Review's 1956 interview with Dorothy Parker; writer Idra Novey talks about the taste of the letter "H"; Helga Davis reads Alexia Arthurs short story BAD BEHAVIOR; acclaimed playwright John Guare shares former Review...

01.10.2018

S1E7 | The Listening Forest (with Eudora Welty, George Plimpton, Denise Levertov, Ottessa Moshfegh, Glynis Bell)

Denise Levertov's poem SOUND OF THE AXE, read by actor Glynis Bell; Eudora Welty tells George Plimpton about the time Henry Miller visited her in Jackson, Mississippi, and recounts the mysterious tale of Thelma; Ottessa Moshfegh reads her story A...

12.20.2017

S1E6 | The Beetle and the Butterfly (with David Sedaris, Eudora Welty, George Plimpton, Sharon Olds, Peter Ho Davies)

Eudora Welty recalls the time her mother saved Dickens; David Sedaris ponders the unsettled dead in his essay LETTER FROM EMERALD ISLE; Nadja Spiegelman reads Sharon Olds's poem THE BEETLE; and Peter Ho Davies's short story THE ENDS tells a...

12.13.2017

S1E5 | To See You Again (with Lucia Berlin, Alison Fraser, Brian Cullman, Eileen Myles, Caleb Crain)

Acclaimed poet Eileen Myles reads SWEET HEART; two-time Tony nominee Alison Fraser lends her voice to Lucia Berlin's story B.F. AND ME; author Caleb Crain encounters the angel of death; and Brian Cullman shares a story about the time Van...

12.06.2017

S1E4 | Missed Connections (with Marc Maron, Sam Lipsyte, Robert Pattinson, James Wright, Sadie Stein, George Plimpton)

Marc Maron reads THE WORM IN PHILLY, a story by Sam Lipsyte; Robert Pattinson reads a poem by James Wright; George Plimpton recalls a boxing match in Hemingway's dining room; and Sadie Stein shares a true story about missed connections.

11.22.2017

S1E3 | I Was There (with James Baldwin, LeVar Burton, Morgan Parker, Dorothea Lasky, Dakota Johnson, Raymond Carver)

LeVar Burton recreates the Review's Art of Fiction interview with James Baldwin; Morgan Parker reads her poem HOTTENTOT VENUS; Dakota Johnson reads a poem by Dorothea Lasky; and Lorin Stein reads WHY DON'T YOU DANCE, a classic story by Raymond...

11.15.2017

S1E2 | Always Leaving (with Jack Kerouac, Hailey Gates, Erica Ehrenberg, Shelly Oria, Donnetta Lavinia Grays)

A visit to Jack Kerouac’s house ends with the story of Buddha; Hailey Gates reads a poem by Erica Ehrenberg about love and moving on; and MY WIFE, IN CONVERSE, Shelly Oria’s tale of marriage, poetry, and cooking class, as...

11.08.2017

S1E1 | Times of Cloud (with Eileen Myles, Wallace Shawn, Maya Angelou, Sadie Stein)

Poet and downtown icon Eileen Myles reading a poem by James Schuyler; archival tape of Maya Angelou interviewed by George Plimpton, the founding editor of the Review; the legendary actor and writer Wallace Shawn reading Denis Johnson’s famous story “Car-Crash...

10.24.2017

Coming soon: The Paris Review Podcast

The world's most legendary literary magazine invites you on an audio odyssey through fiction, archival tape, interviews and late nights with the likes of James Baldwin, Dorothy Parker, and the cutting edge writers of our time. Featuring readings from LeVar Burton, Stockard Channing, Jesse...

What's The Paris Review about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

The Paris Review episodes: