Preview issue no. 212 at theparisreview.org.
Hilary Mantel on the art of fiction: “I suppose if I have a maxim, it is that there isn’t any necessary conflict between good history and good drama.” Lydia Davis on the art of fiction: “I find what happens in reality very interesting and I don’t find a great need to make up things, but I do like retelling stories that are told to me.” Elena Ferrante on the art of fiction: “The media simply can't discuss an artwork unless it can point to some protagonist behind it. And yet there is no work of literature that is not the fruit of tradition, of many skills, of a sort of collective intelligence.”
New fiction by Mark Leyner, Angela Flournoy, Ken Kalfus, James Lasdun, and an essay by J. D. Daniels.
Poems by Charles Simic, Peter Gizzi, Sarah Trudgeon, Shuzo Takiguchi, Major Jackson, Craig Morgan Teicher, Susan Stewart, and Stephen Dunn. A portfolio by Mel Bochner.