‘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.
‘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.
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.’
‘Your friends might never know you intimately. There are those that will know you intimately but never be your friend.’
Jia Pingwa on friendship.
‘I promise you, the committee only looks at two things: how feasible a proposal is, and what it could actually do for the environment.’
A bureaucrat and an entrepreneur discuss environment-saving proposals in a short play by Si’an Chen, translated by Jeremy Tiang.
‘Making sense of a feeling is like building a boat from water.’
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.