The DNA of Literature

The Paris Review has recently started putting their outstanding interview series online. Currently, all of the 1950s and 60s are up - the rest scheduled to appear over the next several months.

The Burroughs Interview, from 1965, is, as would be expected, insightful and entertaining:

I do mean what I say to be taken literally, yes, to make people aware of the true criminality of our times, to wise up the marks. All of my work is directed against those who are bent, through stupidity or design, on blowing up the planet or rendering it uninhabitable. Like the advertising people we talked about, I'm concerned with the precise manipulation of word and image to create an action, not to go out and buy a Coca-Cola, but to create an alteration in the reader's consciousness.

There are a great many others: Borges, Huxley, Kerouac, Nabokov. It is a tremendous resource. Check it out: http://www.parisreview.com/literature.php

Note: The only issue I have with the pdfs is that they are password protected and do not allow you to copy portions of the text - say, to post on a blog in quote or whatever. But in this Age of DRM, I guess it should be expected.