New Writing on Granta.com
Essays & Memoir|Issue 168
The Pneuma Illusion
Mary Gaitskill
‘The intensity of it seemed in retrospect something inexplicable, like a sudden opening in the sky with an outpouring of visions.’
Mary Gaitskill on her experiences with Pneuma therapy.
Fiction|The Online Edition
Perfection
Vincenzo Latronico
Translated by Sophie Hughes
‘They couldn’t put their finger on exactly what it was they craved, but they knew it was very different to what they had.’
Fiction by Vincenzo Latronico, translated by Sophie Hughes.
Essays & Memoir|The Online Edition
Silas Lucas
Garth Risk Hallberg
‘Thinking back to that summer of Silas Lucas, I can see my father trying to invent for me the place where the actual and the possible meet to make something new.’
Garth Risk Hallberg on the borderline business of telling stories.
Essays & Memoir|The Online Edition
Doing the Work
Camilla Grudova
‘I think there should be a National Service of Hospitality. The best way to see the true face of humanity is to serve it a plate of chips.’
Camilla Grudova on bad-mannered customers.
Fiction|The Online Edition
Something Happened
Madeline Cash
‘She is thorough in a way that is off putting to people. It makes for a good secretary, not a good conversationalist.’
Fiction by Madeline Cash.
Granta 168: Significant Other
Lígia
Victor Heringer
‘Today, three years after I befriended him to see him die, the idea of losing Sr Mendes has left me all mixed up.’
A short story by Victor Heringer, translated by James Young.
Bitter North
Alexandra Tanner
‘Eight years in, Hal felt like another her, somehow.’
Fiction by Alexandra Tanner.
The Weight of the Earth
Debmalya Ray Choudhuri & John-Baptiste Oduor
‘The presence of another person at the scene is suggested. The image invites you to imagine their position and to mentally assume it.’
Photography by Debmalya Ray Choudhuri, introduced by John-Baptiste Oduor.
Armance
Fleur Jaeggy
‘I don’t think much of the very silly, even gullible, person that I am.’
Fiction by Fleur Jaeggy, translated by Gini Alhadeff.
Three Mukhatabat
Najwan Darwish
‘He said to me: / Love led me / to pity my own self, / to grieve it / with a vertical grief.’
Poetry by Najwan Darwish. Translated from the Arabic by Kareem James Abu-Zeid.
Kairos
Jenny Erpenbeck, translated by Michael Hofmann
Winner of the International Booker Prize 2024
Berlin. 11 July 1986. They meet by chance on a bus. She is a young student, he is older and married. Theirs is an intense and sudden attraction, fuelled by a shared passion for music and art, and heightened by the secrecy they must maintain.
From a prize-winning German writer, this is the intimate and devastating story of the path of two lovers through the ruins of a relationship, set against the backdrop of a seismic period in European history.
From the Archive
Impertinent Daughters
Doris Lessing
‘She loved examinations, came first in class, adored mathematics, and was expected for a time to become a professional pianist.’
Doris Lessing on class structures and her Victorian mother.
The Up Escalator
Bret Easton Ellis
‘I'm standing on the balcony of Martin's apartment in Westwood, holding a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other, and Martin comes towards me, rushes at me, and with both hands pushes me off the balcony'.
Fiction by Bret Easton Ellis.
Highlights From Granta Books
Recommended Reading
Universal Mother
Momtaza Mehri
‘I turn to O’Connor’s music when I get tired of lying to myself. Her songs are allegorical free-falls. Spiritual chiaroscuros, even.’
Momtaza Mehri on Sinéad O’Connor.
A Good First Marriage is Luck
Sheila Heti & Phyllis Rose
‘Life is so difficult. It may take more than one creature to sustain one life.’
Sheila Heti in conversation with Phyllis Rose.
Ecstatic Joy and Its Variants
Peter Gizzi
‘surely this is about water jetting from a spring, / a languid rafting with no particular destination’
Poetry by Peter Gizzi.
Missing Out
Leila Aboulela
‘She had held the day up with pegs; not only her day but his too.’
Fiction by Leila Aboulela.
News, Prizes and Events
When I Sing, Mountains Dance and Chilean Poet Shortlisted for Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize
When I Sing, Mountains Dance by Irene Sola (trans. Mara Faye Lethem) and Chilean Poet by Alejandro Zambra (trans. Megan McDowell) are both shortlisted for the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize.
Our Share of Night Shortlisted for The Kitschies
Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez (trans. Megan McDowell) is shortlisted for The Kitschies Red Tentacle award, awarded to speculative, sci-fi and fantasy novels.
I’m A Fan Wins a British Book Award
I'm A Fan by Sheena Patel wins the Book of the Year: Discover Award at the British Book Awards.
