John Berger | Granta Magazine

John Berger

John Berger (1926–2017) was a novelist, essayist, screenwriter and critic. His extensive bibliography includes the book-length essay on art criticism Ways of Seeing, the Into their Labours fiction trilogy and the study of migrant workers A Seventh Man. His novel G. was awarded the 1972 Booker Prize, and he was awarded the Golden PEN Award for a Lifetime’s Distinguished Service to Literature in 2009.

John Berger on Granta.com

Essays & Memoir | Issue 35 padlock
Essays & Memoir | Issue 35 padlock

The Zoo in Basel

John Berger

‘To create is to let take over something which did not exist before and is therefore new.’

Art & Photography | Issue 25
Art & Photography | Issue 25

Means of Transport

John Berger

‘Use these photos as means of transport. Ride on them. No passes needed. Go close. Imprudently close. They leave every minute.’

John Berger on images of violent dispossession from South Africa and Lesotho.

Essays & Memoir | Issue 25 padlock
Essays & Memoir | Issue 25 padlock

A Story for Aesop

John Berger

‘The image impressed me when I set eyes upon it for the first time. It was as if it were already familiar, as if, as a child, I had already seen the same man framed in a doorway.’

Fiction | Issue 25 padlock
Fiction | Issue 25 padlock

The Accordion Player

John Berger

‘He played it as loud as he could, as though he hoped the music would remind the hay in the barn above of green grass and blue cornflowers.’

Essays & Memoir | Issue 25
Essays & Memoir | Issue 25

Go Ask the Time

John Berger

‘I began with a story, I will end with story-telling.’

Fiction | Issue 25 padlock
Fiction | Issue 25 padlock

A Question of Geography

John Berger & Nella Bielski

‘If I'm not transferred to the mines, I'll hold out, and you must go on thinking of me as dead: you will be closer, my heart, to the reality.’

Fiction | Issue 9
Fiction | Issue 9

Boris

John Berger

‘Sometimes to refute a single sentence it is necessary to tell a life story.’

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