Granta 149 | Europe: Strangers in the Land

Eleventh of October

Davide Enia

The Strange Story of the World

Chigozie Obioma

Glimpses of a totally different system

William Ghosh

A Language of Figs

Sema Kaygusuz

On Being French and Chinese

Tash Aw

Her Left Hand, The Darkness

‘I had never before brought anyone to my secret places. And now I was bringing Ursula K. Le Guin.’ – Alison Smith

Homeland

Read an excerpt from Walter Kempowski’s Homeland, translated from the German by Charlotte Collins.

Borderland

Fiction from the Nobel-prize-winning author Olga Tokarczuk

On Europe | Peter Stamm

Peter Stamm on the Swiss referendum to join the EU.

Making

Esther Rutter on the relationship between writing and knitting.

Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones

Edoardo Albert on five archaeological findings that bring the past to life.

Little nothings: Nabokov’s road notes

Elsa Court on the road trips Vladimir Nabokov took during the writing of Lolita.

Love After Abuse

Lucia Osborne-Crowley

Lucia Osborne-Crowley on the complexity of navigating sexuality while recovering from sexual abuse.

2019 T.S. Eliot Prize Shortlist

Three Poems

Anthony Anaxagorou

‘we are born / to a siren and the wail of each other’

Zeus

Fiona Benson

‘days I talked with Zeus / I ate only ice / felt the blood trouble and burn / under my skin’

A Sharing Economy

Karen Solie

‘The Paying Guest rises in the middle of the night / to turn off the radio where no radio exists’

The Easel

Sharon Olds

‘When I build a fire, I feel purposeful.’

Cyan

Paul Farley

‘I’m holding out. / I’m blue in the face.’

40 Years of Granta

Where is Kigali?

Lindsey Hilsum

‘Evariste was the nightwatchman. He and I were alone in the house in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, when the killing started.’

The Chelsea Affect

Arthur Miller

‘Despite parboiling myself in the shower a few times I began to like the hotel.’

Let There Be Light!

David Feuer

‘Probably, the Rabbi would have preferred to find a Hasidic psychiatrist, but unfortunately there was no such thing.’

Perchance to Pick One’s Nose

Jan Morris

‘Shame and regret are certainly not the same things: je ne regrette rien, like charity, can cover a multitude of sins.’

Nadine at Forty

Hilary Mantel

‘Each day we re-enact, on ourselves, what was done to us.’

Tiger’s Ghost

Jennie Erdal

‘For nearly fifteen years I wrote hundreds of letters that weren't from me. They ranged from perfunctory thank-you notes and expressions of condolence, to extensive correspondence with the great and the good: politicians, newspaper editors, bishops, members of the House of Lords.’

The Latest from Granta Books

Peter Pomerantsev on the Politics of Feeling

Peter Pomerantsev speaks to Devorah Baum about polarisation in politics, the role that Russia plays in the fantasy life of the West, and how to discuss politics without spitting at your opponents.

Authors

Kathryn Scanlan | Notes on Craft

Kathryn Scanlan

‘I try to write a sentence as unbudging and fully itself as some object sitting on a shelf in my office.’

George Saunders and Ben Marcus In Conversation

George Saunders & Ben Marcus

‘One purpose of art is to get us to wake up, recalibrate our emotional life, get ourselves into proper relation to reality.’

Charlotte Collins | Notes on Craft

Charlotte Collins

Charlotte Collins on the craft of translation. ‘Literary translators don’t just translate the ‘meaning’ of a text; we translate the feel of it.’

Cynthia Ozick | First Sentence

Cynthia Ozick

‘Some stories begin with an incident, or a set of enigmatic circumstances, or a scene indelibly witnessed, or the relationship of unlike temperaments, or even something as gossamer as a mood. And then there is the kind of story that is rooted in an idea.’