The Invisible Hand of the Editor. The Making of the Paris Review Interview

Abstract

Although frequently cited in literary biographies, the Paris Review interviews are not often placed in the context of the medium for which they were originally produced. This article highlights the editorial processes which preceded the publication of the interviews, as opposed to reading the end products as autonomous texts which border on (auto)biography. In The Paris Review’s case these processes could take up years and involved a range of mediators, including editors, interviewers and literary agents. Whether the involvement was extreme, as in the case of the Allen Ginsberg interview, or more subtle, as in the case of the Ralph Ellison interview, the Paris Review editors made a critical imprint on the interview series, which has so far remained invisible to readers of the journal.