Issues
← Back to all issuesGranta 109: Work
Winter 2009
Most of us spend more time at work than anywhere else, but are our lives defined by the work that we do? Do our jobs reflect our passions and personality, or are they just a means to an end, a necessary evil to pay for the weekends? From the jobless to the workaholics, from Peru to Essex to Rwanda, Granta 109 tells the stories of how and why we work, and whether or not work has the power to make us who we are.
From this Issue
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Dreams in a Time of War
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o
‘I had not had lunch that day and my stomach had already forgotten the breakfast porridge gobbled before my six-mile run to Kĩnyogori Intermediate School.’
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Tommy
Donald Ray Pollock
‘I began working at the Mead Paper Company in Chillicothe, Ohio, in the summer of 1973.’
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What I Think About When I Think About Robots
Steven Hall
‘The robot is the Godot of practical science.’
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Harmony
Julian Barnes
‘They had dined well at no. 261 Landstrasse, and now passed eagerly into the music room.’
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Vacuum
Brad Watson
‘The mother told the boys that she was much unappreciated in this house.’
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Hippocrates
V. V. Ganeshananthan
‘Pain informs. Pain draws a map. Doctors resolve to relieve pain, but pain is information, and to lose it is to lose something valuable.’
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The Unnamed
Joshua Ferris
‘Coffee and a powdered doughnut sat on his desk, the morning offering.’
