‘Master Peachling,’ called a pheasant, ‘Where are you going?’
Sign in to Granta.com.
‘Master Peachling,’ called a pheasant, ‘Where are you going?’
Sign in to Granta.com.
‘Feelings can be very obscure but numbers never lie.’
Kevin Brazil on metrics, obsession and fitness.
‘An intense workout is an ecstasy of punishment packaged as self-improvement.’
Mary Wellesley on exercise, ritual and Barry’s Bootcamp.
‘I was not good at sports because I would not do sports because I did not have the body for sports because I would not do sports.’
Saba Sams on girlhood, embodiment and avoiding sports.
‘Following United rarely brings me any great joy and most often it depresses me. If I could disengage, I would.’
Jonny Thakkar on Manchester United.
‘I deployed my body against an opponent like a blunt and effective instrument.’
John Patrick McHugh on playing Gaelic football.
David Peace is the author of the Red Riding Quartet, GB84, The Damned Utd, Tokyo Year Zero, and Red or Dead. He was one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists in 2003, and has received the James Tait Memorial Prize. He lives in Tokyo.
More about the author →‘When we talk about history, the dangers of embellishment, fabrication and wilful distortion are ever-present’
‘The song, the voice, and the heat; men on their knees, heads in hands, sobbing and now howling.’
‘The finance officers read the answers in silence, then returned them to be burned.’
‘It would be wrong to say she hasn’t experienced life. Instead, it would be more apt to describe her as someone whom time has slipped by without leaving the slightest trace.’
Fiction by Wang Anyi, translated by Michael Berry.
‘It’s more like painting. It’s not like a film.’
Wang Xiaoshuai on the evolution of Chinese cinema and the challenges faced by those working at the vanguard of independent film.
‘There really was a moth I found in a toolbox (not as musical or interesting as ‘strongbox’), alive, in the attic, in that box.’
Granta magazine is run by the Granta Trust (charity number 1184638)
The copyright to all contents of this site is held either by Granta or by the individual authors, and none of the material may be used elsewhere without written permission. For reprint enquiries, contact us.