In the early 1970s, I went to China to study. My subject was meant to be Chinese literature of the twentieth century, but the timing was unfortunate: the Cultural Revolution was still unfolding and Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing, had banished or otherwise disposed of the authors and the writing that inter…
Sign in to Granta.com.
‘The anglophone world, we have to infer, has run out of words for its own feelings.’
Daisy Hildyard on the wisdom of scarecrows.
‘What is the read receipt for?’
Lillian Fishman on texting, power and the ethics of leaving a friend on read.
‘Like pretty much everyone who uses the internet, I have seen many terrible things that I did not search for and that I cannot unsee.’
Rosanna McLaughlin on what the internet thinks she wants.
‘I have a pathological addiction to the internet, which I indulge with the excuse of making art. It rarely translates to anything good and mostly leaves me overstimulated and afraid.’
Paul Dalla Rosa on excess and the internet.
‘rumors of bees on speedwell, / no oxidative stress just / effortless pollination’
Two poems by Sylvia Legris.
‘Anniversaries, of course, can be a two-edged sword: they invite historical reappraisal.’
‘There is nobody to blame but the Communist Party. They had absolute control during the fifty years it took to destroy Beijing, and they had the chance to develop a modern, civilized city.’
‘Once I came home at the end of August, it was as if nothing had ever happened. Indeed, nothing had.‘
‘In my imagination I have been to many villages and cities in the world.’
