‘What am I doing here more than looking – / which I would stop / only to help things through their vanishing’
When I arrived in that new country for the first time
I came by boat,
by canoe in fact and completely alone,
so the pines and conifers stepping down to the river,
some with their roots as pink as pigs’ tails
in the dark current swirling around them regardless,
were my only company.
Sign in to Granta.com.
‘I think there should be a National Service of Hospitality. The best way to see the true face of humanity is to serve it a plate of chips.’
Camilla Grudova on bad-mannered customers.
‘Anyone who has ever worked night shifts will understand the vertiginous feeling that comes with staring down the day from the wrong end.’
A.K. Blakemore on working nights.
‘I was constantly reading job ads, trying to find my holy grail – a job I could stand to do, and someone foolish enough to hire me.’
Sandra Newman on learning how to play professional blackjack.
‘I loved being a receptionist. What I loved about it was playing the part of being a receptionist.’
Emily Berry on being a temporary office worker.
‘Every part of you would swell, including your eyeballs, and no matter how much water you drank, you were always dehydrated.’
Junot Díaz on working for a steel mill.
‘The hunters have all failed, / the three hunters and their forlorn dogs / now arriving home from the mountain / which thunders above their village’
‘He dedicated The Less Deceived to her: it was the only collection of poems he dedicated to anyone.‘
‘He did what people told him to do. He was a machine.’
A short story by Eka Kurniawan, translated by Annie Tucker.
‘Madeleine Gordon was not much of a Jew. She was a Starbuck, the daughter of whalers, pirates and other not-so-genteel Semitophobes of Nantucket’.
