From the North Kivu capital of Goma, it takes an hour by helicopter to reach Walikale, a town in eastern Congo’s largest and most troubled territory. With less than 2,000 miles of paved roads across the entire Democratic Republic, Walikale, like much of the North Kivu province it dominates, is vir…
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.
‘When it came to our son, her defensive instincts were well-developed and all the more necessary because it was hard from the outside to see why we were so protective.’
‘In a city as sprawling and as proud of its architectural grandeur as Chicago, such an emphasis on size seemed only fitting.’
Dinaw Mengestu talks about how he came to write ‘Big Money’, his contribution to Granta 108, his forthcoming novel, his relationship with his hometown, Chicago, and his inspiration as a writer.
‘I am on the hunt for the Russian Empire, or what traces might still exist of its colonial enterprise.’
Bathsheba Demuth travels the Yukon river, following the history of the fur trade and the Nulato massacre.
‘More than 111,000 people have gone missing in Mexico in the past six years.’
Anjan Sundaram on cartels, conflict and the rate of disappearances in Mexico.
Photographs from the Belfast Exposed Archive, documenting the Troubles from the early 1970s.
