New Writing on Granta.com

Translated by Christine Müller

‘I can’t help Lentille. Even though she roars. As long as she roars, I won’t be able to work.’ An essay from Urs Mannhart, translated by Christine Müller

He Cleans

Translated by Imogen Taylor

‘He cleans. Cleans the sink, cleans the plughole, takes out the sink strainer and cleans the underside.’

Fiction by Valeria Gordeev, translated by Imogen Taylor.

Essays & Memoir|The Online Edition

Haruspex

Rebecca May Johnson

‘How can I accept a trauma or a loss that I cannot define?’ Rebecca May Johnson on pregnancy and divining the future.

Beginning and End

Translated by Ruth Martin

‘If she really knew how beautiful she was, she would hardly have met up with him, so it was best not to tell her.’ Fiction by Lukas Maisel, translated by Ruth Martin.

The Invisible Harbour

Translated by Jackie Smith

‘Only from a distance does the observer understand the object that remained an enigma from close up.’ Fiction by Deniz Utlu, translated by Jackie Smith.

Granta 165: Deutschland

Auto Mind

Adrian Daub

‘Today, Germany knows it’s supposed to talk about cars.’

Adrian Daub on car-washing the past.

Allegro Pastell

Leif Randt

‘It was fantastic to own a phone, it was fantastic to have people you loved in your life.’

Fiction by Leif Randt, translated by Ruth Martin.

Last Week at Marienbad

Lauren Oyler

‘The only thing on the schedule was spa.’

Lauren Oyler on her trip to Marienbad.

The Killing of a Berlin Power Broker

Peter Richter

‘Why does the centre of Berlin look like an abandoned shopping mall on the edge of Omaha?’

An essay from Peter Richter, translated by Shaun Whiteside.

In the Movie Bunker

Lutz Seiler

‘On 6 April 1981, I walked into the District Conscription Office, thereby obeying the very first command of my time as a soldier.’

Memoir from Lutz Seiler, translated by Martyn Crucefix.

Constructing a Nervous System

Margo Jefferson

Winner of the Rathbones Folio Prize Book of the Year

In this intimate and innovative memoir, Pulitzer prize-winning author Margo Jefferson gives us her own personal and intellectual formation.

From Josephine Baker’s radiant transformations, to Willa Cather’s aesthetics of whiteness, Jefferson shows us how we can find space in cultures that will not make room for us, and how, even in times of stricture, we might learn to construct ourselves.