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42-832: The Plimpton Prize is an annual award of $ 10,000 given by The Paris Review to a previously unpublished or emerging author who has written a work of fiction that was recently published in its publication. The award was named in honor of longtime editor of The Paris Review , George Plimpton , who died in 2003. The Plimpton Prize is funded by Sarah Plimpton, his widow, and Terry McDonell , president of The Paris Review Board of Directors. The Paris Review The Review ' s "Writers at Work" series includes interviews with Ezra Pound , Ernest Hemingway , T. S. Eliot , Jorge Luis Borges , Ralph Ellison , William Faulkner , Thornton Wilder , Robert Frost , Pablo Neruda , William Carlos Williams , and Vladimir Nabokov , among hundreds of others. Literary critic Joe David Bellamy wrote that

84-465: A war of ideas against communism. Historian Frances Stonor Saunders writes (1999): "Whether they liked it or not, whether they knew it or not, there were few writers, poets, artists, historians, scientists, or critics in postwar Europe whose names were not in some way linked to this covert enterprise." Peter Coleman argues that the CCF was a participant in a struggle for the mind "of Postwar Europe" and

126-670: A campaign against the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda , an ardent communist. The campaign intensified when it appeared that Neruda was a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1964 but he was also published in Mundo Nuevo , a CCF-sponsored periodical. Other prominent intellectuals targeted by the CCF were Jean-Paul Sartre , Simone de Beauvoir and Thomas Mann who was becoming increasingly pro-Soviet. From 1950 to 1969,

168-658: A collaborator, for his spying activities. In a May 27, 2008 interview with Charlie Rose , Matthiessen stated that he "invented The Paris Review as cover" for his CIA activities. Matthiessen maintained that the Review was not part of the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF), an organization used by the CIA to sponsor an array of literary magazines; but the record shows The Paris Review benefited financially from selling article reprints to CCF magazines. Under Gourevitch's leadership,

210-416: A redesign of the magazine's print edition and its website, both of which were met with critical acclaim. In September 2010, the Review made available online its entire archive of interviews. On December 6, 2017, Stein resigned amid an internal investigation into his sexual misconduct toward women at the workplace. In October 2012, The Paris Review published an anthology, Object Lessons, comprising

252-660: A scholarly inquiry and publication, or the agency may channel research money through foundations – legitimate ones or dummy fronts." The New York Times cited, among others, the CIA's funding of the Congress for Cultural Freedom, Encounter magazine, "several American book publishers", the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 's Center for International Studies , and a foreign-aid project in South Vietnam run by Michigan State University . In 1967,

294-404: A selection of 20 short stories from The Paris Review' s archive, each with an introduction by a contemporary author. Contributors include Jeffrey Eugenides (with an introduction to a story by Denis Johnson ), Lydia Davis (with an introduction to a story by Jane Bowles ), and Ali Smith (with an introduction to a story by Lydia Davis ). On October 8, 2012, the magazine launched its app for

336-622: A vast seminar at Princeton on "The United States: Its Problems, Impact, and Image in the World" (December 1968) where unsuccessful attempts were made to engage with the New Left. From 1968 onwards national committees and magazines (see CCF/IACF Publications below) shut down one after another. In 1977 the Paris office closed and two years later the Association voted to dissolve itself. Certain of

378-486: Is an annual gala held in celebration of American writers and writing. The Revel "brings together leading figures and patrons of American arts and letters from throughout New York to pay tribute to distinguished writers at different stages of their careers". Proceeds from the Spring Revel go directly toward The Paris Review Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization established by the co-founders in 2000 to ensure

420-631: Is an emerging writer with a monthly column, "Detroit Archives". The series explores her family history through iconic landmarks in Detroit . "The interviews in The Paris Review […] are about as canonical, in our literary universe, as spoken words can be. They long ago set the standard […] for what well-brewed conversation should sound like on the page." —Dwight Garner, The New York Times An interview with E. M. Forster , an acquaintance of Plimpton's from his days at Kings College at

462-698: Is widely considered one of the CIA's more daring and effective Cold War covert operations." That same year in May, Thomas Braden , head of the CCF's parent body the International Organizations Division , responded to the Ramparts report in an article entitled "I'm Glad the CIA is 'Immoral'" , in the Saturday Evening Post , defending the activities of his unit within the CIA. For more than ten years, Braden admitted,

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504-531: The Review began incorporating more nonfiction pieces and, for the first time, began regularly publishing a photography spread. A four-volume set of Paris Review interviews was published by Picador from 2006 to 2009. Gourevitch announced his departure in the fall of 2009, citing a desire to concentrate more fully on his creative writing. Lorin Stein was named editor of The Paris Review in April 2010. He oversaw

546-472: The University of Cambridge , was the first in a long series of author interviews, now known as the "Writers at Work" series. In 1964, The Paris Review initiated a series of prints and posters by contemporary artists with the goal of establishing an ongoing relationship between the worlds of writing and art — Drue Heinz , then publisher of The Paris Review , shared credit with Jane Wilson for initiating

588-706: The iPad and iPhone . Developed by Atavist, the app includes access to new issues, back issues, and archival collections from its fiction and poetry sections—along with the complete interview series and the Paris Review Daily. In November 2015, The Paris Review published its first anthology of new writing since 1964, The Unprofessionals: New American Writing from The Paris Review, including writing by well-established authors like Zadie Smith , Ben Lerner , and John Jeremiah Sullivan , as well as emerging writers like Emma Cline , Ottessa Moshfegh , Alexandra Kleeman , and Angela Flournoy . In late 2021, for

630-770: The 1950s held principally in Western Europe, but also in Rangoon , Mexico City , Tokyo , Ibadan (Nigeria) and South Vietnam : the Founding Conference in Berlin was followed in 1951 by the First Asian Conference on Cultural Freedom, held in Bombay . A further 21 conferences over an even wider geographical area are listed for the first half of the 1960s. In the early 1960s, the CCF mounted

672-583: The CCF financed German writers such as Heinrich Böll and Siegfried Lenz . In April 1966, The New York Times ran a series of five articles on the purposes and methods of the CIA. The third of these 1966 articles began to detail false-front organizations and the secret transfer of CIA funds to, for example, the US State Department or to the United States Information Agency (USIA) which "may help finance

714-567: The CIA had subsidized Encounter through the CCF, which it also funded; one of the magazine's staff, he added, was a CIA agent. In 1967, the organization was renamed the International Association for Cultural Freedom (IACF) and continued to exist with funding from the Ford Foundation . It inherited "the remaining magazines and national committees, the practice of international seminars, the regional programs, and

756-565: The Congress for Cultural Freedom. In 1991 it merged with the Open Society Foundations , set up and supported by financier and philanthropist George Soros . The records of the International Association for Cultural Freedom and its predecessor the Congress for Cultural Freedom are today stored at the Library of the University of Chicago in its Special Collections Research Center. The Congress founded, sponsored or encouraged

798-639: The Hadada in 2019. Congress for Cultural Freedom The Congress for Cultural Freedom ( CCF ) was an anti-communist cultural organization founded on 26 June 1950 in West Berlin . At its height, the CCF was active in thirty-five countries. In 1966 it was revealed that the Central Intelligence Agency was instrumental in the establishment and funding of the group. The congress aimed to enlist intellectuals and opinion makers in

840-674: The Seine from 1956 to 1957. The Café de Tournon in the Rue de Tournon on the Rive Gauche was the meeting place for staffers and writers, including du Bois, Plimpton, Matthiessen, Alexander Trocchi , Christopher Logue , and Eugene Walter . The first floor and basement rooms in Plimpton's 72nd Street apartment became the headquarters of The Paris Review when the magazine moved from Paris to New York City in 1973. The magazine's circulation

882-557: The U.S. and Western Europe. Among those who came to Berlin in June 1950 were writers, philosophers, critics and historians: Franz Borkenau , Karl Jaspers , John Dewey , Ignazio Silone , Jacques Maritain , James Burnham , Hugh Trevor-Roper , Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. , Bertrand Russell , Ernst Reuter , Raymond Aron , A. J. Ayer , Benedetto Croce , Arthur Koestler , Richard Löwenthal , Melvin J. Lasky , Tennessee Williams , Irving Brown and Sidney Hook . There were conservatives among

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924-496: The US magazines Ramparts and The Saturday Evening Post reported on the CIA's funding of a number of anti-communist cultural organizations aimed at winning the support of supposedly Soviet-sympathizing liberals worldwide. These reports were lent credence by a statement made by a former CIA covert operations director admitting to CIA financing and operation of the CCF. The CIA website states that "the Congress for Cultural Freedom

966-503: The conference took up residence in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in an attempt to discredit the peace conference. The anti-communists attempted to enlist a range of international supporters for their cause, including Benedetto Croce , T. S. Eliot , Karl Jaspers , André Malraux , Bertrand Russell and Igor Stravinsky . The founding conference of the Congress for Cultural Freedom was attended by leading intellectuals from

1008-930: The creation of the World Peace Council , which in March 1950 issued the Stockholm Appeal . As part of this campaign there had also been an event in New York City in March 1949: the Cultural and Scientific Conference for World Peace at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel was attended by many prominent U.S. liberals , leftists and pacifists who called for peace with the Soviet Union. Prominent participants included Dmitri Shostakovich and Aaron Copland . Anti-communist opponents to

1050-483: The exclusion of criticism, but with the aim in mind of merely removing criticism from the dominating place it holds in most literary magazines. […] I think The Paris Review should welcome these people into its pages: the good writers and good poets, the non-drumbeaters and non-axe-grinders. So long as they're good. The Review ' s founding editors include Humes, Matthiessen, Plimpton, William Pène du Bois , Thomas Guinzburg and John P. C. Train . The first publisher

1092-467: The exposure of funding by the CIA. At its height, the CCF had offices in 35 countries, employed dozens of personnel, and published over twenty prestigious magazines. It held art exhibitions, owned a news and features service, organized high-profile international conferences, and rewarded musicians and artists with prizes and public performances. Between 1950 and 1966 the Congress sponsored numerous conferences. A selective list describes 16 conferences in

1134-643: The fifth issue. The magazine was also among the first to recognize the work of Jack Kerouac with the publication of his short story, "The Mexican Girl", in 1955. Other works making their first appearance in The Paris Review include Italo Calvino 's Last Comes the Raven , Philip Roth's Goodbye Columbus , Donald Barthelme 's Alice , Jim Carroll 's The Basketball Diaries , Matthiessen's Far Tortuga , Jeffrey Eugenides 's The Virgin Suicides , and Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections . Aisha Sabatini Sloan

1176-645: The first issue with Stokes as editor-in-chief and Na Kim as art director, the journal was given a redesign by Matt Willey of Pentagram that hearkened back to the look that it had in the late 1960s and early 1970s: a minimalist style, a cover with a sans serif font and a great deal of white space, a smaller trim size, and paper that was physically softer. The Review has published several emerging writers who have gone to notable careers, including Adrienne Rich , V.S. Naipaul , Philip Roth , T. Coraghessan Boyle , Mona Simpson , Edward P. Jones , and Rick Moody . Selections from Samuel Beckett 's novel Molloy appeared in

1218-473: The future of The Paris Review . The 2010 Spring Revel took place on April 13, 2010 and presented Philip Roth with the Hadada. The 2011 Spring Revel took place on April 12, 2011, chaired by Yves-André Istel and Kathleen Begala. Robert Redford presented the Hadada to James Salter . The 2011 Revel also featured Ann Beattie presenting the Plimpton Prize for Fiction and Fran Lebowitz presenting

1260-399: The ideal of a worldwide community of intellectuals." There was also, until 1970, "some continuity of personnel". Under Shepard Stone and Pierre Emmanuel the dominant policy of the new Association shifted from positions held by its predecessor. No "public anti-Soviet protests" were issued, "not even in support of the harassed Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov". The culmination of this approach was

1302-526: The impact was more dramatic: in Uganda, President Milton Obote had Rajat Neogy , the editor of the flourishing Transition magazine, arrested and imprisoned. After Neogy left Uganda in 1968 the magazine ceased to exist. The European Intellectual Mutual Aid Fund ( Fondation pour une Entraide Intellectuelle Européenne ) set up to support intellectuals in Central Europe, began life as an affiliate of

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1344-453: The inaugural Terry Southern Prize for Humor. In 2012, Robert Silvers received the Hadada. In 2013, it was Paula Fox . In 2014, Frederick Seidel received the prize. In 2015, it was Norman Rush . In 2016, Errol Morris presented Lydia Davis with the Hadada and 2017 Edward Hirsch presented Richard Howard with the Hadada. In 2018, Joy Williams received the prize from John Waters . Fran Lebowitz presented Deborah Eisenberg with

1386-497: The participants, but non-Communist (or former Communist) left-wingers were more numerous. Irving Kristol , who would become known as the "godfather of neoconservatism," was also present. During the Berlin conference, Nicolas Nabokov proclaimed: "With this Congress we must build a war organization". The Manifesto of the Congress was drafted by Arthur Koestler, with amendments added on a motion proposed by historian Hugh Trevor-Roper and philosopher A. J. Ayer. An Executive Committee

1428-593: The publications that began as CCF-supported vehicles secured a readership and ongoing relevance that, with other sources of funding, enabled them to long outlast the parent organisation. Encounter continued publishing until 1991, as did Survey , while the Australian Quadrant and the China Quarterly survive to this day. While the revelation of CIA funding led to some resignations, notably that of Stephen Spender from Encounter , outside Europe

1470-470: The series was "one of the single most persistent acts of cultural conservation in the history of the world." The headquarters of The Paris Review moved from Paris to New York City in 1973. Plimpton edited the Review from its founding until his death in 2003. An editorial statement by William Styron in the inaugural Spring 1953 issue described the magazine's intended aim: The Paris Review hopes to emphasize creative work—fiction and poetry—not to

1512-544: The series. In the half century since its inception, the series has featured notable New York artists of the postwar decades, including Louise Bourgeois , Willem de Kooning , David Hockney , Helen Frankenthaler , Keith Haring , Robert Indiana , Jimmy Ernst , Alex Katz , Ellsworth Kelly , Sol LeWitt , Roy Lichtenstein , Robert Motherwell , Louise Nevelson , Claes Oldenburg , Robert Rauschenberg , Larry Rivers , James Rosenquist , Ed Ruscha and Andy Warhol . The series, suspended after George Plimpton's death in 2003,

1554-842: The world at large. The CCF was founded on 26 June 1950 in West Berlin , which had just endured months of Soviet blockade . Formation of the CCF came in response to a series of events orchestrated by the Soviet Union: the World Congress of Intellectuals in Defense of Peace in Wroclaw ( Poland ) in August 1948; a similar event in April the following year in Paris , the World Congress of Peace Partisans; and their culmination in

1596-492: Was Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan . Du Bois, the magazine's first art editor, designed the iconic Paris Review eagle to include both American and French significance: an American eagle holding a pen and wearing a Phrygian cap . The magazine's first office was located in a small room of the publishing house Éditions de la Table ronde . Other notable locations of The Paris Review include a Thames River grain carrier anchored on

1638-408: Was 9,700 in 1989. Brigid Hughes took over as editor following Plimpton's death in 2003; her last issue was March 2005. She was succeeded by Philip Gourevitch in spring 2005. In January 2007, an article published by The New York Times supported the claim that founding editor Matthiessen was in the Central Intelligence Agency , but reported that the magazine was used as a cover, rather than

1680-404: Was elected in 1950 at the founding conference in Berlin, with seven members and six alternate members: Irving Brown ( Haakon Lie ), Arthur Koestler ( Raymond Aron ), Eugen Kogon ( Carlo Schmid ), David Rousset ( Georges Altman ), Ignazio Silone ( Nicola Chiaromonte ), Stephen Spender ( Tosco Fyvel ) and Denis de Rougemont who became President of the committee. The management of the CCF

1722-449: Was entrusted to its secretariat, headed by Michael Josselson . By the time Josselson joined the Congress of Cultural Freedom in 1950 he was "undoubtedly a CIA officer". A polyglot able to converse fluently in four languages (English, Russian, German and French), Josselson was heavily involved in the CCF's growing range of activities – its periodicals, worldwide conferences and international seminars – until his resignation in 1967, following

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1764-666: Was relaunched in 2012 with a print by Donald Baechler . Three prizes are awarded annually by the editors of The Paris Review : the Paris Review Hadada , the Plimpton Prize , and the Terry Southern Prize for Humor . Winning selections are celebrated at the annual Spring Revel . No application form is required. Instead, winners are selected from the stories and poems published the previous year in The Paris Review . The Paris Review Spring Revel

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