Kerouac, Burroughs, Ginsberg; On the Road, Naked Lunch, Howl: The names and titles continue to reverberate as the Beats remain a vital source of inspiration to successive generations of readers and writers. In their Writers at Work series, The Paris Review has interviewed all the key Beats and their cousins, the Black Mountain School of experimental poets. In this new collection, they describe their art and lives, creating a unique and fascinating record of the writers and their inspirations.

Allen Ginsberg interviews Andrei Voznesensky and Amiri Baraka and is interviewed himself, alongside Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, Paul Bowles, Charles Olson, Gary Snyder, Robert Creely, Ken Kesey, and Denise Levertov. Beat Writers at Work also includes a previously unpublished interview with Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

Rick Moody, the author of Garden State, The Ice Storm, and Purple America has written a new Introduction.