The board of the Paris Review is considering eight candidates, all of them women, to become editor of the literary journal. Boris Kachka reports on the hiring process. “Board members tapped the candidates one by one, like pledges to an exclusive club. They were asked to submit memos and then summoned for 45-minute sessions in the riverside townhouse. The search committee, which includes novelists Mona Simpson and Jeffrey Eugenides, presented fairly conventional questions (e.g., which Review story they liked best, and why)—without revealing what they’re actually looking for.”
Guyanese author Wilson Harris—whose innovative novels considered colonialism and Caribbean culture—has died.
The finalists for the second annual Simpson Family Literary Prize have been announced: Ben Fountain, Samantha Hunt, Karan Mahajan, Anthony Marra, and Martin Pousson. The $50,000 prize, which originated at University of California at Berkeley, was created to help fiction writers “in the middle of a burgeoning career.”
Sheryl Sandberg’s book Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead is now five years old. Worldwide, 4.2 million copies of the book have been purchased. The New York Times looks at the book’s legacy, talking to Sandberg’s fans—and also a few of her detractors.
“When you get older, it’s harder to be a bastard,” says Trainspotter author Irvine Welsh.
