New Writing on Granta.com
Fiction|Issue 171
Posterity
Joshua Cohen
‘The festival dedicated to his late father was scheduled to open tomorrow evening on the Mediterranean island of Midorca and the evening after that Acker was set to present his remarks at the Biblioteca Pública de Midorca.’
Fiction by Joshua Cohen.
Essays & Memoir|Issue 171
Benoît
Michel Houellebecq
‘I’ll never be able to order an œuf mayonnaise in a restaurant without thinking of him – literature can do that, when the description is perfect.’
Michel Houellebecq on his friend Benoît Duteurtre.
Essays & Memoir|Issue 171
Burning Mao
Fernanda Eberstadt
‘On 7 December 1976, I finally succeeded in pestering my parents into introducing me to Andy Warhol.’
Fernanda Eberstadt on her friendship with Andy Warhol.
Essays & Memoir|Issue 171
The Conservation of Mass: On Resomation
William Atkins
‘If it has ever fallen to you to scatter someone’s ashes, especially those of someone you loved, you might share my sense of the process as tantamount to fly tipping, the stuff resembling nothing so much as cat litter.’
William Atkins on disposing of the dead.
Essays & Memoir|Issue 171
Nowhere
Yasmina Reza
‘I have no house, from time to time I dream of having one, not a holiday home but a house to bury myself in.’
Memoir by Yasmina Reza, translated by Alison L. Strayer.
Granta 171: Dead Friends
This Very Complicated Cast of Mind
Renata Adler
‘I thought of her more as a sort of parental figure in the beginning. There was scolding.’
Renata Adler on her friendship with Hannah Arendt.
All Being Well
Susie Boyt
‘Of course your head would get muddled with the other person’s at the end. It was just the practical side of “for better or for worse”. That was friendship so much more than marriage.’
Fiction by Susie Boyt.
Unruly Light
Ming Smith & Tobi Haslett
‘Some restless, formless element thrums deep within the portraits and stalks through every streetscape.’
Photography by Ming Smith, introduced by Tobi Haslett.
The Vegetarian
Han Kang, translated by Deborah Smith
Winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature
Yeong-hye and her husband are ordinary people. He is an office worker with moderate ambitions and mild manners; she is an uninspired but dutiful wife. The acceptable flatline of their marriage is interrupted when Yeong-hye, seeking a more ‘plant-like’ existence, decides to become a vegetarian, prompted by grotesque recurring nightmares. In South Korea, where vegetarianism is almost unheard-of and societal mores are strictly obeyed, Yeong-hye’s decision is a shocking act of subversion. Her passive rebellion manifests in ever more bizarre and frightening forms, leading her bland husband to self-justified acts of sexual sadism.
Fraught, disturbing and beautiful, The Vegetarian is a novel about modern day South Korea, but also a novel about shame, desire and our faltering attempts to understand others, from one imprisoned body to another.
£8.99
From the Archive
Don’t Flinch
Adrienne Rich
‘Lichen-green lines of shingle pulsate and waver / when you lift your eyes. It’s the glare.’
A poem by Adrienne Rich.
Lost Cat
Mary Gaitskill
‘Which deaths are tragic and which are not? Who decides what is big and what is little?’
Memoir by Mary Gaitskill.
October, 1948
Kazuo Ishiguro
‘I remember looking around me with approval that first night, and today, for all the changes which have transformed the world around it, Mrs Kawakamu's remains as pleasing as ever.’
Fiction by Kazuo Ishiguro.
Highlights From Granta Books
Recommended Reading
The Museum Guard
J.M. Coetzee
‘Do they strike people as a strange couple? He does not know, does not care.’
Fiction by J.M. Coetzee.
Where the Language Changes
Bathsheba Demuth
‘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.
Have a Good Trip with Trabant
Martin Roemers & Durs Grünbein
‘Question: ‘What do a Trabant and a condom have in common?’ Answer: ‘Both decrease the pleasure of the ride.’’
Durs Grünbein introduces photography by Martin Roemers.
Lifetimes of the Soviet Union
Yuri Slezkine
‘Bolshevism, like most millenarian movements, proved a one-generation phenomenon.’
Yuri Slezkine on Soviet history and the generational arc of revolution.
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.
