‘I want to tell you everything,’ he said. ‘You’ll understand.’
Sign in to Granta.com.
‘My name is Javier Cercas, just like you.’
‘I want to tell you everything,’ he said. ‘You’ll understand.’
Sign in to Granta.com.
‘We meet at various points in the great swathes of the past that neither of us were alive to witness.’
Allen Bratton on a daytrip to a castle with his older boyfriend.
‘Listening to three white poets, whom I suspect are academics, talk about the state of poetry.’
Oluwaseun Olayiwola eavesdrops on an older generation.
‘I’d been dubious about his company at first.’
Sarah Moss on watching Shakespeare with her twelve-year-old son.
‘She didn’t trust us because, to her, tenants were like children.’
Kate Zambreno on negotiating with her older landlady.
‘A moment now swallowed in embarrassment, I asked a question only a young person might ask an older one.’
Lynne Tillman on trying to understand what makes a generation.
Javier Cercas is the author of three novels: Soldiers of Salamis, which won the 2005 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, The Speed of Light and The Tenant & The Motive. ‘Agememnon’s Truth’ is taken from the collection La verdad de Agamenón: crónicas, artículos, ensayos y un cuento.
More about the author →Anne McLean has translated writings by, among others, Julio Cortázar, Tomás Eloy Martínez and Carmen Martín Gaite. Her translations of Soldiers and Salamis, The Speed of Light and The Tenant & The Motive by Javier Cercas are published by Bloomsbury.
More about the translator →
‘He takes the knife, cuts the barb from the body, sends it back to the depths of the river.’
An extract from Not a River by Selva Almada, translated by Annie McDermott.
‘The past is no longer behind me but in front.’
An extract from About Ed by Robert Glück.
‘How do we imagine the past of those we love?’
Arthur Asseraf on family and fractured memories.
‘you notice / that some of these men / are full of passionate music / while others pain your ears’
Poetry by Elvis Bego.
‘The place we come from, the place we call home, is the home of our suffering.’
Jamaica Kincaid talks about finding her way to writing.
‘The girl’s curiosity often led her into troublesome situations, but she considered it part of the pact her soul had made in order to gain entrance to the world, and did not worry much over what befell her.’
New fiction from Kathryn Scanlan.
The copyright to all contents of this site is held either by Granta or by the individual authors, and none of the material may be used elsewhere without written permission. For reprint enquiries, contact us.