Rites of Passage: Stories from The Paris Review

ACTORS & ARTISTS

Umberto Eco (1932 - 2016) was an internationally acclaimed Italian author best known for his novels The Name of the Rose, Foucault’s Pendulum, The Island of the Day Before, The Prague Cemetery, and Numero Zero. Eco also published numerous nonfiction essay collections and works of literary criticism, and taught at institutions including the University of Turin, Columbia University, Harvard University, and the University of Bologna, where he served as professor emeritus.

Michael Emerson has won two Emmy awards for his work on The Practice and Lost, and is also known for his starring role on Person of Interest. On Broadway he has appeared in The Iceman Cometh and Hedda Gabler. Additional screen credits include The X-Files, Saw, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Parenthood, Arrow, and Mozart in the Jungle, The Name of the Rose, and Evil. Upcoming projects include the film Man & Witch.

George Fox’s stories and articles have appeared in Esquire, Playboy, and The Saturday Evening Post. His first novel, Without Music, was published in 1971 by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. In 2002, a collection entitled Inside Man was released, which included “The Twenty-Sixth Second,” originally published in The Paris Review, “Kessler: The Inside Man,” published in Esquire in 1967, and the novel Without Music.

Jin Ha is currently shooting the upcoming Apple TV adaptation of Min Jin Lee’s bestselling novel Pachinko. He can be seen in FX’s Devs, HBO Max's Love Life, and in NBC’s Jesus Christ Superstar: Live in Concert. Stage credits include the Chicago company of Hamilton: an American Musical in the role of Aaron Burr and the Broadway revival of David Henry Hwang’s M. Butterfly. Ha is an alumnus of the NYU Graduate Acting program.

Linda Lavin has won a Tony Award, as well as Drama Desk, Outer Critics' and Helen Hayes Awards for her performance in Broadway Bound in 1987. She is a six-time Tony Award nominee for her roles in The Last of the Red Hot Lovers, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Tale of the Allergist's Wife, Collected Stories, and The Lyons. In 2017, Lavin was seen in Candide directed by Hal Prince and received stellar reviews. Inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame in 2011, additional theater credits include The New Century (Drama Desk Award), Other Desert Cities (LCT), and Too Much Sun (Vineyard Theatre). She is a two-time Golden Globe winner for her role as Alice on the nine-year hit TV series Alice on CBS, and she co-starred with Sean Hayes in the NBC series Sean Saves the World. Lavin has also recently guest starred on Mom, The Good Wife, and Madam Secretary. She also appeared with Robert De Niro in Nancy Meyers’ The Intern. Additional recent feature films include A Short History of Decay, Manhattan Nocturne with Adrien Brody, How to Be A Latin Lover opposite Rob Lowe and Eugenio Derbez, Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase, and Naked Singularity. Lavin starred as a series regular on the CBS sitcom 9JKL opposite Mark Feurstein and Elliot Gould, and was most recently seen on the series Brockmire, The Santa Clarita Diet, and Yvette Slosch, Agent. She was born in Portland, Maine, and is a graduate of the College of William & Mary, which recently conferred on her an honorary doctor of arts degree, where she endows a theater program. Lavin performs her concert act with Billy Stritch, her music director, and has released two CDs of jazz standards and show tunes, Possibilities and Love Notes.

Patrick Modiano is a celebrated French novelist and winner of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature. His debut novel, La Place de l'étoile, won the Prix Fénéon and the Prix Roger-Nimier in 1968. Additional works include Rue des boutiques obscures, winner of the Prix Goncourt; Les Boulevards de ceinture, winner of the Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française; Dans le café de la jeunesse perdue; and most recently, Souvenirs dormants and Encre sympathique. He is the recipient of the 2010 Prix mondial Cino Del Duca from the Institut de France for lifetime achievement, and the 2012 Austrian State Prize for European Literature, among other honors.

Robert Sean Leonard won the Tony Award for his performance in The Invention of Love and earned nominations for his work in Long Day’s Journey Into Night and Candida. He has also appeared on Broadway in The Speed of Darkness, Arcadia, The Iceman Cometh, The Music Man, Sunday in the Park with George, and At Home at the Zoo, among other roles both on and off-Broadway. His film credits include Dead Poets Society, Mr. and Mrs. Bridge, Swing Kids, Much Ado About Nothing, The Age of Innocence, In the Gloaming, The Last Days of Disco, The Killer, Tape, and A Painted House. His television credits include featured roles on House, Falling Skies, and most recently, the miniseries The Hot Zone.

Joy Williams is the winner of the Rea Award for the Short Story. Her work includes the short story collections Taking Care, Escapes, Honored Guest, and 99 Stories of God, and the novels State of Grace, The Changeling, Breaking and Entering, and The Quick and the Dead, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. She also wrote a book of essays titled Ill Nature, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Additional awards and honors include the Harold and Mildred Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and she was elected to the Academy in 2008. Her most recent collection of short stories, The Visiting Privilege, was published in 2015. In 2018, Williams was honored with The Paris Review’s Hadada Award for Lifetime Achievement.