Announcing Our Fall Issue

The debut issue of The Paris Review introduces a special feature on the Nobel Prize-winning Belarusian author Svetlana Alexievich, featured in their inaugural Art of Oral History interview. The interview, conducted by Russian investigative journalist Elena Kostyuchenko, took place in Alexievich's Berlin apartment and is part of the publication's new Fall issue.

The Russian phrase "kitchen talk," which refers to conversations that could only occur around the kitchen table in postwar Soviet Union apartments, is still alive in Alexievich's work. Her books, including accounts of World War II, Chernobyl, and the collapse of the Soviet Union, are drawn from hundreds of interviews with strangers.

Alexievich explains that the best conversations happen behind closed doors, without social censors and unfold slowly and intimately. The Paris Review is known for condensing large amounts of transcripts into concise pieces, similar to how Alexievich shapes her oral histories. The current issue features works such as Scott McClanahan's flood story, Sam McKinniss' friendship portrait, and Brian Ma's haunting debut about a Vietnam War refugee becoming an electrical engineer in America.