Southern Review

Southern Review
Title	Southern Review
Category	Literary magazine
Frequency	Quarterly
Firstdate	1935
Country	United States
Language	English
Based	Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Southern Review The Southern Review is an American quarterly literary magazine founded in 1935, associated with a major public university in Louisiana and known for publishing poetry, fiction, essays, and criticism. Over decades it has intersected with significant figures and institutions in 20th- and 21st-century letters, contributing to conversations around modernism, regional literature, and national literary culture. The journal has published early or formative work by prizewinning authors and maintained relationships with editors, foundations, presses, and archives that shaped U.S. letters.

History

Founded in the mid-1930s, the magazine emerged amid institutional efforts at a southern land-grant university to build cultural prestige, with initial support from philanthropists and state political figures. Its early decades overlapped with influential magazines and movements, including interactions with editors of The Criterion, The Kenyon Review, and Poetry, and intersections with literary modernists, southern agrarians, and New Criticism proponents. During World War II and the postwar era the journal navigated shifts tied to fellowships from foundations such as the Guggenheim and Rockefeller programs and connections to archival collections at major research libraries. In the late 20th century the review underwent editorial transitions that paralleled changes at other periodicals like The Paris Review, Harper's, and The New Yorker, and benefitted from university presses, cultural councils, and federal arts funding. Renovations of campus facilities, partnerships with regional literary festivals, and digitization projects in the 21st century linked the magazine to contemporary initiatives at institutions including the Library of Congress, National Endowment for the Arts, and state historical societies.

Editorial Mission and Content

The editorial mission combines a dedication to creative writing—poetry, short fiction, novel excerpts—with critical essays, translations, and book reviews. Editorial teams have solicited work from established figures associated with prize circuits such as the Pulitzer, National Book Award, and MacArthur Fellowships, and from translators engaged with European and Latin American literatures tied to publishers like Faber & Faber, Knopf, and Yale University Press. The magazine's pages have balanced regional commitments tied to the American South with cosmopolitan interests in modern and contemporary movements connected to figures at Columbia University, Oxford University, and the Sorbonne. The journal maintains peer and invited submissions processes informed by editorial practices found at venues such as Tin House, Granta, and The Atlantic, while collaborating with literary centers, writing programs, and MFA workshops at institutions including Iowa Writers' Workshop, Stanford University, and UNC Chapel Hill.

Notable Contributors and Works

Across its run the magazine has carried work by prominent poets, novelists, essayists, and critics whose careers intersect with major prizes and movements. Contributors have included individuals associated with the Modernist period such as Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot-adjacent networks, midcentury novelists who moved between New York and southern literati circles, and contemporary authors connected to writers-in-residence programs at Princeton, Yale, and Berkeley. The journal has printed early pieces by National Book Award recipients, Pulitzer Prize winners, Poet Laureates, and MacArthur Fellows, and has featured translations linked to Nobel laureates, Booker Prize finalists, and PEN awardees. Its pages have hosted essays on canonical works and responses to landmark publications from Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, and Routledge, alongside fiction appearing later in collected volumes from Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Viking, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Publication and Distribution

Published quarterly, the magazine operates from a university setting and is distributed through academic bookstores, independent retailers, and subscription services that serve libraries and literary institutes. It has cooperated with university press distribution networks and library consortiums, and its back issues have been acquired by special collections at institutions such as the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, the Huntington Library, and state university archives. Digital initiatives have made content available through aggregation platforms used by research libraries and by literary databases maintained at the Modern Language Association and JSTOR-participating repositories. The journal's circulation patterns reflect relationships with alumni networks, donor foundations, and cultural organizations including statewide arts councils and national humanities entities.

Reception and Influence

Critics, scholars, and editors have noted the magazine's role in shaping reputations and framing debates around regionalism, canonicity, and contemporary poetics. Reviews and scholarly articles in journals affiliated with the American Literature Association, Modern Language Association, and regional study centers have traced its influence on syllabi, anthologies, and prize shortlists. The review's mentoring of younger writers and its partnerships with literary prizes, writing fellowships, and translation grants have tied it to ecosystems that include PEN America, the Guggenheim Foundation, and state arts commissions. Its archive of correspondence and manuscripts at university special collections has been cited in biographies, dissertations, and critical studies published by major academic presses.

Awards and Recognition

Work appearing in the magazine has been shortlisted for or received external recognition from major awards and anthologies, including citations in Best American Poetry, Best American Short Stories, Pulitzer Prize longlists, National Book Award discussions, and other national prizes. Editors and contributors have held fellowships from institutions such as the MacArthur Foundation, Guggenheim Foundation, and National Endowment for the Arts, and the journal has received grants and commendations from state cultural agencies and national humanities bodies. Its alumni and contributors include recipients of the Poetry Society of America awards, the PEN/Faulkner Award, and other honors that underscore the publication's place within American letters.

Category:American literary magazines Category:Quarterly magazines published in the United States Category:Publications established in 1935