In an interview at The Paris Review, we found a historic moment when famous authors wrote for free in a completely unknown publication. When the legendary editor Robert Silvers launched The New York Review of Books in 1962, he went straight to the most talented writers in the country and asked them to work for free.

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Our thought was to think of the best writers in the world to review the books of the season—even people who hadn’t written book reviews for years or ever. Many of them we knew—Norman Mailer, [William] Styron, W. H. Auden, Edmund Wilson. We said, “Look, we have three weeks, we can’t pay a penny, will you do it?” And they all did.

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The new section is helmed by Amy Hertz, an editor at Dutton who will maintain her position at the publisher while working on the HuffPo books project. In addition, some of the website’s content will come from The New York Review of Books, earning the section the new title: “Books/NYR.”

NYRB founder Robert Silvers had this comment: “We see this new arrangement with Arianna and The Huffington Post as a great adventure for the Review–an opening for new readers, whose reactions we’re keen to see.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.