Benjamin Percy, Jesse Ball to start.

Topic: Nathaniel Rich on Contemporary Fiction

Nathaniel Rich: Well, I- I think a lot of new young writers I’ve been really excited about, some of whom we’ve published in The Paris Review. Benjamin Percy is a great writer from Oregon who published a first- he’s published a couple books now- published a collection called Refresh, Refresh, which is moving kind of- in the kind of tradition of- of masculine American fiction but also very funny and- and tender and interesting. Jesse Ball is another writer who I think is- who’s- who’s roughly my age, who’s incredibly profound and- and funny, and wei- really weird style that- that- that to me is- is I think the most appealing writing done- being done now by a young writer that I know of. And who else did I mention? I don’t know. I have to think about it some more. I read a lot of really bad short stories. A lot of my day is taken up by reading a lot of really average short stories or- or r- or really bad short stories, and when I find something that’s really good, I- I get really excited. Danielle Evans is another young writer who-- I’m excited about a short story collection she has coming out soon. Dinaw Mengestu had her first novel this year called The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, I believe. That was excellent. And these are all writers who are 30 or under, thereabouts, and I think are- are doing really exciting things and- and things that I really admire.

Recorded On: 3/17/08