The Paris Review

A special production of Anne Carson’s “I Don’t Do Innocents," which first appeared in issue no. 253 (Fall 2025). Produced by Complicité for The Paris Review , directed by Simon McBurney, and featuring Carson herself reading the stage directions, this radio play takes place during a wedding party as the bride’s younger sister eavesdrops from the roof through a drainpipe. I Don’t Do Innocents Writte...

Jordy Rosenberg reads his story “My Life, by Barbara Rosenberg,” from issue no. 253 (Fall 2025), told from the perspective of Barbara, a mother from Brooklyn who is ready to battle a corduroy blazer and the child who wants to wear it freely.  This episode was produced by John DeLore, Lori Dorr, and Emily Stokes. The music used in this episode is “Gamelan Ornaments,” composed and performed by David...

Joseph Earl Thomas reads his essay “I Got Snipped: Notes after a Vasectomy,” about the best sexual decision he ever made. This episode was produced by John DeLore and Helena de Groot, and was mixed by John DeLore. Our theme song for this series is “Bryant Park and Ride,” composed and performed by David Cieri. Joseph Earl Thomas’s essay can be found online at: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/20...

Lisa Carver reads an essay about visiting two strip clubs with her French husband: first the Moulin Rouge, then a dive bar in Bedford, New Hampshire. At the Moulin Rouge, she has a revelation: “Even though the women had naked boobies, they still looked like angels. I think angels do have naked boobies, now that I’ve seen this show.” This episode was produced by John DeLore and Helena de Groot, and...

Mihret Sibhat reads her essay “Wax and Gold and Gold,” about a friendship she formed with a prostitute in Addis Ababa while attempting to teach her about Jesus. This episode was produced by John DeLore and Helena de Groot, and was mixed by John DeLore. Our theme song for this series is “Bryant Park and Ride,” composed and performed by David Cieri. Mihret Sibhat’s essay can be found online at: http...

“When people see your truck, they tend to see what you can do for them,” J. D. Daniels writes in his essay about a black Nissan hardbody pickup he owned many years ago. This episode was produced by John DeLore and Helena de Groot, and was mixed by John DeLore. Our theme song for this series is “Bryant Park and Ride,” composed and performed by David Cieri. J. D. Daniels’s essay can be found online...

Ottessa Moshfegh reads her essay “The Smoker,” about renovating a house soaked in nicotine—and a haunting encounter with its former owner. This episode was produced by John DeLore and Helena de Groot, and was mixed by Helena de Groot. Our theme song for this series is “Bryant Park and Ride,” composed and performed by David Cieri. Moshfegh's essay can be found online at: https://www.theparisreview....

“Personals” is a new audio series from The Paris Review, featuring writers reading first-person essays. Featuring essays from Ottessa Moshfegh, Mihret Sibhat, Joseph Earl Thomas, Lisa Carver, and J.D. Daniels. The series is produced by Sophie Haigney, Lori Dorr, Olivia Kan-Sperling, John DeLore, and Helena de Groot. Many thanks to our sponsor: MUBI. MUBI is the curated streaming service dedicated...

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 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 pe...

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 Gabriel Marin. This episode was produced by John DeLore and Helena de Groot, and was mixed and sound-designed by John DeLore. Our theme song...

“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 “Shad...

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,” compo...

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 Helena de Groot. Our theme song this season is “Shadow,” composed and performed by Ernst Reijseger . Additional Links: thepar...

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 of Fiction interview with Marta Figlerowicz. This episode was produced and sound-designed by John DeLore. Our theme song this season is “Shadow,”...

“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 “Shad...

“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 R...

“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...

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 of Sexual Treasure ” (issue no. 74, Fall–Winter 1978), “True Love,” and “The Easel.” This episode was produced and sound-designed by John DeLore. Th...

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...

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 “Sh...

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.

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 mo...

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, All...

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...

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...