Paul West (1930–2015) published fifty books, the last of which was The Shadow Factory (2008). He received the Literature Award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, a 1993 Lannan Prize for Fiction, and the Grand-Prix Halpèrine-Kaminsky Prize for the Best Foreign Book in 1993. He was named a Literary Lion by the New York Public Library and a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government. His novel The Tent of Orange Mist was a finalist for the 1995 National Book Critics Circle Award in Fiction.

He published stories in AGNI for more than a decade.