Winner of the International Booker Prize 2024
Kairos
Jenny Erpenbeck
WINNER OF THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE 2024
’An ambitious story of love and betrayal’ - Irish Times
Berlin. 11 July 1986. They meet by chance on a bus. She is a young student, he is older and married. Theirs is an intense and sudden attraction, fuelled by a shared passion for music and art, and heightened by the secrecy they must maintain. But when she strays for a single night he cannot forgive her and a dangerous crack forms between them, opening up a space for cruelty, punishment and the exertion of power. And the world around them is changing too: as the GDR begins to crumble, so too do all the old certainties and the old loyalties, ushering in a new era whose great gains also involve profound loss. From a prize-winning German writer, this is the intimate and devastating story of the path of two lovers through the ruins of a relationship, set against the backdrop of a seismic period in European history.
Latest Releases
2023 in Highlights
Essays & Memoir|The Online Edition
Listlessness
Christy Edwall
‘The listless mind is one which defers rather than tries to bring about closure. There is always one more tab to open.’ Christy Edwall on listlessness in twenty-first century fiction.
Fiction|Issue 162
Biography of X
Catherine Lacey
‘Grief has a warring logic; it always wants something impossible, something worse and something better.’ An extract from Biography of X by Catherine Lacey.
Fiction|The Online Edition
I Won’t Let You Go
Hiromi Kawakami
Translated by Allison Markin Powell
‘I have no idea why I felt so drawn to the mermaid, but the pull was irresistible.’ Fiction by Hiromi Kawakami, translated by Allison Markin Powell.
Essays & Memoir|Issue 161
Speaking Brother
Will Harris
‘I don’t have a brother; I’m an only child. But a few years ago I started writing poems in which a brother appears.’ Will Harris on Brother Poem
In Conversation|The Online Edition
In Conversation
Leslie Jamison & Margo Jefferson
‘The self is the work of art. Criticism puts that self in the service of other art.’ The authors discuss the multiplicity of the self, the idea of necessity, and how to work with what you lack.
Writing by Granta Books Authors
Skromnost
Janet Malcolm
‘The Czech word skromnost means “modesty”, but it also carries a mild sense of forelock-tugging humbleness, of knowing one’s place.’
An excerpt from Janet Malcolm’s final book.
I Am the Word for God and Boy
Aidan Cottrell-Boyce
‘We are sitting in a cafe, on planet Earth, on the night before our wedding day.’
Fiction by Aidan Cottrell-Boyce.
In Conversation
Tom Bullough & Ben Rawlence
‘People may not want realism but it’s still our job to try and supply it in compelling and truthful ways.’
Tom Bullough and Ben Rawlence on writing into the climate crisis.
The Intoxicated Years
Mariana Enríquez
‘They cried as if they weren’t to blame for any of it. We hated innocent people.’
Careless
Hiroko Oyamada
‘As I lay on the mattress, the white toe pads of the gecko floated up before me, against the vastness of the blue-black night. Rather than a presence, it seemed to me more like a trace, a barely discernible odour that flooded in on the air.’
Bestsellers
News, Prizes & Events
I’m A Fan Wins a British Book Award
I'm A Fan by Sheena Patel wins the Book of the Year: Discover Award at the British Book Awards.
Birnam Wood Shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction
Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton is a finalist for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction.
Heritage Aesthetics Wins the RSL Ondaatje Prize
Anthony Anaxagorou has won the RSL Ondaatje Prize for his collection Heritage Aesthetics. The prize is awarded to an outstanding work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry that best evokes the spirit of a place.