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  • The Paris Review

    Behind the Author’s Photo

    by Beowulf Sheehan Oct 11, 2018 4 minutes

    Beowulf Sheehan is the master of the literary portrait. His new book, AUTHOR, collects his photographs of two hundred writers, historians, journalists, playwrights, and poets from thirty-five countries, from Roxane Gay to Masha Gessen, Patti Smith to Zadie Smith, Karl Ove Knausgaard to J. K. Rowling, and Jonathan Franzen to Toni Morrison. Here, he was generous enough to share some moments from behind the scenes:

    Margaret Atwood. Photograph © Beowulf Sheehan/PEN American Center/Agence Opale

    Margaret Atwood

    Margaret Atwood radiates grace. I’ve felt it from her each time I’ve been in her presence. In 2012, I photographed her in the greenroom of the New School’s Alvin Johnson/J. M. Kaplan Hall for PEN America. She was, as she had been previously, the brightest light in the

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