John OHara was born in Pennsylvania on 31 January 1905. His first novel, Appointment in Samarra (1934), won him instant acclaim, and quickly came to be regarded as one of the most prominent writers in America. He won the National Book Award for his novel Ten North Frederick and had more stories published in the New Yorker than anyone in the history of the magazine. His fourteen novels include A Rage to Live, Pal Joey, BUtterfield 8 and From the Terrace. John OHara died on 11 April 1970.
The Paris Review was founded in 1953 and has published early and important work by Philip Roth, V.S. Naipaul, Jeffrey Eugenides, A.S. Byatt, T.C. Boyle, William T. Vollmann and many other writers who have given us great literature of the past half century. Philip Gourevitch was named editor of The Paris Review in 2005, succeeding George Plimpton, who was editor from 1953 until his death in 2003.