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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 performed by Ernst Reijseger.

Additional Links:

https://www.theparisreview.org/fiction/8252/concerning-the-future-of-souls-joy-williams

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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 this season is “Shadow,” composed and performed by Ernst Reijseger.

Additional Links: 

www.theparisreview.org/fiction/7873/trial-run-zach-williams

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“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 “Shadow,” composed and performed by Ernst Reijseger.

Additional Links:

https://www.theparisreview.org/fiction/6173/foleys-pond-peter-orner

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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,” composed and performed by Ernst Reijseger.

Additional Links:

theparisreview.org/fiction/4872/the-victim-junichiro-tanizaki

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The Japanese American Museum: https://www.janm.org/

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:

theparisreview.org/letters-essays/8039/the-walk-book-sean-thor-conroe

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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,” composed and performed by Ernst Reijseger.

Additional Links:

theparisreview.org/interviews/7968/the-art-of-fiction-no-258-olga-tokarczuk

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