“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 boy and his community.

This episode was produced by John DeLore and Helena de Groot, and was mixed and sound designed by John DeLore. Our theme song this season is “Shadow,” composed and performed by Ernst Reijseger.

Additional Links:

https://www.theparisreview.org/fiction/6173/foleys-pond-peter-orner

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S4E10 | Foley’s Pond

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 John DeLore and Helena de Groot, and was mixed and sound designed by John DeLore. Our theme song this season is “Shadow,” composed and performed by Ernst Reijseger.

Additional Links: 

theparisreview.org/fiction/4872/the-victim-junichiro-tanizaki

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The Japanese American Museum: https://www.janm.org/ 

S4E9 | The Victim, by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki

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 and sound designed by Helena de Groot. Our theme song this season is “Shadow,” composed and performed by Ernst Reijseger.

Additional Links: 

theparisreview.org/letters-essays/8039/the-walk-book-sean-thor-conroe

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S4E8 | The Walk Book

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 of Fiction interview with Marta Figlerowicz.

This episode was produced and sound designed by John DeLore. Our theme song this season is “Shadow,” composed and performed by Ernst Reijseger.

Additional Links: 

theparisreview.org/interviews/7968/the-art-of-fiction-no-258-olga-tokarczuk

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S4E7 | Olga Tokarczuk’s Divine Cosmos

“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 Lucy Ives. 

This episode was produced by Helena de Groot and John DeLore, and was mixed and sound designed by Helena de Groot. Our theme song this season is “Shadow,” composed and performed by Ernst Reijseger.

Additional Links: 

https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/8016/the-art-of-fiction-no-260-robert-gluck

https://theparisreview.org/miscellaneous/7896/about-ed-robert-gluck

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S4E6 | About Ed

“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 episode was produced, sound-designed and mixed by Helena de Groot. Our theme song this season is “Shadow,” composed and performed by Ernst Reijseger.

Additional Links: 

theparisreview.org/blog/2022/06/29/scenes-from-an-open-marriage/

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S4E5 | Scenes from an Open Marriage

“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 exploration of Blackness: “deep-space black, black-hole black … lampblack and ink black, boot black and blackjack and blacker.”


This episode was produced by Helena de Groot and John DeLore. It was sound-designed, mixed, and features original scoring by Helena de Groot. Our theme song this season is “Shadow,” composed and performed by Ernst Reijseger.

Additional Links:

theparisreview.org/poetry/7883/bob-ross-paints-your-portrait-terrance-hayes

https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/457422/so-to-speak-by-hayes-terrance

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S4E4 | Bob Ross Paints Your Portrait

Pulitzer Prize winner 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 of Sexual Treasure” (Issue No. 74, Fall–Winter 1978), “True Love,” and “The Easel.”

This episode was produced and sound designed by John DeLore. Audio recording of “Sisters of Sexual Treasure” is courtesy of the Woodberry Poetry Room, Harvard University. Our theme song this season is “Shadow,” composed and performed by Ernst Reijseger.

Additional Links:

theparisreview.org/interviews/8000/the-art-of-poetry-no-114-sharon-olds

theparisreview.org/poetry/3462/the-sisters-of-sexual-treasure-sharon-olds

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S4E3 | The I is Made of Paper

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 “Death” (Issue No. 82, Winter 1981). This episode was produced by Helena de Groot and John DeLore, and was sound designed by John DeLore. Our theme song this season is “Shadow,” composed and performed by Ernst Reijseger.

Additional Links:

theparisreview.org/poetry/7855/from-couplets-maggie-millner

theparisreview.org/poetry/6855/death-rainer-maria-rilke

theparisreview.org/poetry/2039/two-poems-toi-derricotte

maggiemillner.com/

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S4E2 | The Same IKEA Bed

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 dyke entirely too into basketball, dogs, and memes.” This episode was produced and sound designed by Helena de Groot. Our theme song this season is “Shadow,” composed and performed by Ernst Reijseger.

Additional Links:

theparisreview.org/fiction/7963/this-is-everything-there-will-ever-be-rivers-solomon

rivers-solomon.com/

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

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 15th for the fourth season.

Season 4 Trailer: The Paris Review Podcast

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 in a reenactment of her classic Art of Fiction interview with Linda Kuehl. Jericho Brown reads his poem “Hero”: “my brothers and I grew up fighting / Over our mother’s mind.” The actor, comedian, and podcaster Connor Ratliff reads Bud Smith’s “Violets,” the story of two unlikely arsonists rediscovering life in the flames. The episode closes with Bridgers performing “Garden Song.”

To hear more from Connor Ratliff, check out his podcast Dead Eyes. To hear Avery Trufelman’s latest show, find the podcast Nice Try!

“Hero” by Jericho Brown appears courtesy of the 92nd Street Y Unterberg Poetry Center.

This episode was sound designed and mixed by Hannis Brown, and mastered by Justin Shturtz.

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

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 Fiction no. 246, Rachel Cusk and Sheila Heti discuss how writing her first novel helped Cusk discover her “shape or identity or essence.” Next, Allan Gurganus’s reading of his story “It Had Wings,” about an arthritic woman who finds a fallen angel in her backyard, is interspersed with a version of the story rendered as a one-woman opera by the composer Bruce Saylor. The episode closes with “Dear Someone,” a poem by Deborah Landau.

To check out Captioning the Archives, the book Aisha Sabatini Sloan created with her father, Lester Sloan, visit McSweeney’s.

This episode was sound designed and mixed by John DeLore, and mastered by Justin Shturtz.

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

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 from that interview, a conversation between Jones and Hilton Als. Then actor Amber Gray (Hadestown) reads Jones’s story “Marie” from issue no. 122.

This episode was sound designed and mixed by Helena de Groot, and mastered by Justin Shturtz.

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

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 her essay “If You Are Permanently Lost,” in which she confesses that “space makes no sense”; and Venita Blackburn reads “Fam,” a very short story about self-love and social media.

This episode was sound designed and mixed by Helena de Groot, and mastered by Justin Shturtz.

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

Robert Frost defines modern poetry in an excerpt from his [Art of Poetry interview](https://urldefense.com/v3/ https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4678/the-art-of-poetry-no-2-robert-frost ;!!NUnUjx3wvH5xgA!La9JzfrCxrTLTJC-BUCjhUWQaEI9PUYzjObTI7BHU1X34cu0PG5sG9hZ3SP6-g%24); the Italian poet Antonella Anedda discusses her poem “[Historiae 2](https://urldefense.com/v3/ https://theparisreview.org/poetry/7487/historiae-2-antonella-anedda ;!!NUnUjx3wvH5xgA!La9JzfrCxrTLTJC-BUCjhUWQaEI9PUYzjObTI7BHU1X34cu0PG5sG9j2rn0NSQ%24)” with her translator Susan Stewart before the American vocal ensemble Tenores de Aterúe re-imagines the poem as a song in the folk tradition of Anedda’s native Sardinia; and Yohanca Delgado reads her story “[The Little Widow from the Capital](https://urldefense.com/v3/ https://theparisreview.org/fiction/7644/the-little-widow-from-the-capital-yohanca-delgado ;!!NUnUjx3wvH5xgA!La9JzfrCxrTLTJC-BUCjhUWQaEI9PUYzjObTI7BHU1X34cu0PG5sG9iWagiT-A%24),” a tale of mystery, heartbreak, and embroidery set in a New York apartment building.

Robert Frost’s December 16, 1959, interview with Richard Poirier appears courtesy of the Woodberry Poetry Room at Harvard University's Houghton Library. PS3511.R94 Z467 1959x. [HOLLIS Permalink: 990023780790203941](https://urldefense.com/v3/ http://id.lib.harvard.edu/alma/990023780790203941/catalog ;!!NUnUjx3wvH5xgA!La9JzfrCxrTLTJC-BUCjhUWQaEI9PUYzjObTI7BHU1X34cu0PG5sG9jnvzRIow%24).

To learn more about Tenores de Aterúe, check out their documentary feature at [www.aterue.com\](https://urldefense.com/v3/ http://www.aterue.com ;!!NUnUjx3wvH5xgA!La9JzfrCxrTLTJC-BUCjhUWQaEI9PUYzjObTI7BHU1X34cu0PG5sG9j0o67FmA%24). Visit [Bandcamp](https://urldefense.com/v3/ https://tenoresdeaterue.bandcamp.com/ ;!!NUnUjx3wvH5xgA!La9JzfrCxrTLTJC-BUCjhUWQaEI9PUYzjObTI7BHU1X34cu0PG5sG9hoyiL-Pg%24) to hear more of their music.

This episode was sound designed and mixed by John DeLore, and mastered by Justin Shturtz.

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

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 by Yohanca Delgado, Venita Blackburn, Bud Smith, Allan Gurganus, and Edward P Jones. Poetry from Monica Youn, Deborah Landau, Jericho Brown, Antonella Anedda, and Natalie Scenters-Zapico. Plus excerpts of interviews with Joan Didion, Robert Frost, Rachel Cusk, and George Saunders. This season includes the voices of Phoebe Bridgers, Connor Ratliff, Jessica Hecht, and Amber Gray.

Check out this trailer for a preview of the upcoming season, and subscribe now to hear the first episode on October 27th, 2021.

Season 3 Trailer: The Paris Review Podcast Returns

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. What you are about to hear is an exclusive excerpt of the first step in the process of conducting Momaday’s Writers at Work interview, a bit of the very first call between Momaday and his interviewer, the poet Layli Long Soldier. They discuss the importance of oral tradition to literature, especially to the Native American tradition.

Celebrating N. Scott Momaday

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 opens with excerpts of Toni Morrison’s 1993 Art of Fiction Interview, scored live by some of the musicians that created the score for Seasons 1 and 2. Then Vijay Seshadri reads his poem “Ailanthus”; Quincy Tyler Bernstine reads “A Story for Your Daughters, A Story for Your Sons” by Rebecca Makkai; finally, Emily Wells provides live scoring for Bill Callahan’s rendition of Adrienne Rich’s poem “The Tree.”

“The Tree” excerpted from Collected Poems: 1950-2012 © 2016 by the Adrienne Rich Literary Trust. Used with permission of the publisher, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. All rights reserved. // The musicians providing the live scoring are Curtis Breweron guitar, Sam Ospovat on drums, and Mike Brown on bass. // Our theme song is composed by David Cieri.

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

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 oceanically; actor Griffin Dunne reads Henry Green’s story “Arcady; or a Night Out.”; and we close with a recording of the late WS Merwin reading his poem “Night Singing.”

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