Of course, I’d lied to the editors of Vogue and told them I spoke perfect French.
To read this in full, take out a subscription to Granta. Over thirty years of new writing at your fingertips – subscribe now.
Sign in to Granta.com.
Top Reads 2020
Qualities of Earth
‘The slutty ingenuity of vegetables when it comes to desire and reproductive methods is a marvel.’
Rebecca May Johnson negotiates allotment culture.
The Second Career of Michael Riegels
‘Globalisation is incomplete: money can go anywhere, but laws cannot.’
Oliver Bullough on one of Britain’s most contested outposts: the British Virgin Islands.
Learning to Sing
‘You discover during your very first lessons that the problem of singing better involves overcoming many other problems you had not ever imagined.’
A new story from Lydia Davis.
Ogadinma
‘She began to count; it was easier this way, counting, because she would not have to remember how she felt.’
An excerpt from Ukamaka Olisakwe’s Ogadinma.
I, Minotaur
‘Like any desert, I learn myself by what’s desired of me—
and I am demoned by those desires.’
From Postcolonial Love Poem by Natalie Diaz.
