Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Paris Review was founded in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton. The magazine was established in Paris, where the postwar literary scene was vibrant and affordable.
The Writers at Work series is a long-running collection of in-depth author interviews published by The Paris Review. It includes conversations with Ezra Pound, Ernest Hemingway, T. S. Eliot, Jorge Luis Borges, Vladimir Nabokov, and hundreds of others. Literary critic Joe David Bellamy called it one of the most persistent acts of cultural conservation in the history of the world.
Founding editor Peter Matthiessen was employed by the Central Intelligence Agency at the time the magazine was founded, and he used The Paris Review as cover while stationed in Paris, as reported by The New York Times in January 2007. Historians note the Review was not directly funded by the CIA, though it benefited indirectly through reprint sales to CIA-backed journals such as Encounter and Preuves. Matthiessen later expressed regret and maintained the magazine was editorially independent.
The Paris Review published early or debut works by a wide range of writers, including Jack Kerouac's short story 'The Mexican Girl' in 1955, selections from Samuel Beckett's Molloy in its fifth issue, Philip Roth's Goodbye, Columbus, Jeffrey Eugenides's The Virgin Suicides, and Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections. It was also among the first to feature Philip Larkin, Adrienne Rich, and V. S. Naipaul.
The Paris Review awards three annual prizes: the Hadada, a bronze statuette for distinguished literary commitment; the Plimpton Prize, which carries $10,000 and an engraved ostrich egg for an emerging writer's best fiction or poetry; and the Terry Southern Prize for Humor, a $5,000 award for work embodying humor, wit, and sprezzatura. All prizes are celebrated at the annual Spring Revel.
Brigid Hughes was appointed editor in January 2004, becoming the magazine's second editor and its first female editor. She was succeeded by Philip Gourevitch in spring 2005, who was followed by Lorin Stein in April 2010. Stein resigned on the 6th of December 2017 amid an internal investigation into allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct.