Beethoven Was One Sixteenth Black
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At the Auction of the Ruby Slippers
Salman Rushdie
‘The bidders who have assembled for the auction of the magic slippers bear little resemblance to your usual saleroom.’
Motorama 1954
Bill Morris
‘It was at sundown on New Year's Day 1954 that Claire Hathaway began to feel embarrassed by her new television set.’
Anatomy of a Cheeseburger
Jeremy Rifkin
‘Ray Kroc, one of the founders of the McDonald's hamburger chain, changed American eating habits as effectively as Henry Ford changed the way Americans travel.’
The Night of the Railwaymen’s Ball
Ivan Klíma
‘The season of ballroom dancing was upon us and crime was on the increase. I have little interest in ballroom dancing – I don't dance.’
The Adjuster
Tracy Kidder
’On the day my career at Fireplace Mutual began, six of us recruits filed into the smoke-filled office of the Supervisor of Adjusters, Mr Kreisky.’
Night Prayer
Louise Erdrich
‘It was hot and windy in the garden of Our Lady of the Wheat, but inside the convent it was worse.’
Philadelphia
Eugene Richards
‘The ‘War Zone’ in Philadelphia is just north of the centre, about a mile and a half from City Hall and across the Street from Temple University.’
Bears in Mourning
Adam Mars-Jones
‘When I think about it, it was terrible the way we behaved when Victor died. We behaved as if we were ashamed of him, or angry.’
Brazil
Sue Halpern
‘Water curls through the Fortaleza slum: sewer water. It drains between shacks made of sticks and mud, and is pretty when it catches the sun’.
Journals and Letters
Sappho Durrell
‘I can’t carry anyone else’s fears; I have enough to contend with of my own.’
Field Burning
William Wharton
‘I thought after what had happened to us in the past twenty-four hours I’d never be scared to die again, but I am.’
Ramadan
Mona Simpson
‘He took my left hand and banded a cleft rose petal over my third finger. I knew before looking in the book. ‘Marrying,’ he said. He’s so young, I was thinking.’
Alphabet City
Geoffrey Biddle
‘When I first worked here, the neighbourhood was not called Alphabet City. It was the Puerto Rican part of the Lower East Side and the Puerto Ricans called it Loisaida, low-ee-SIGH-da, a new York-Puerto Rican version of Lower East Side.’
The Law of White Spaces
Giorgio Pressburger
‘It was beginning to seem as if his brother’s fate depended on him, on his ability, or lack of it, to learn the prayer for the dead.’
Mothers, Daughters, Sons
Markéta Luskačová
Markéta Luskačová’s photographs of women and children for Granta 37: The Family.
Waterway
Geoffrey Wolff
‘You would not guess looking into my son's bedroom at home that Blackwing’s ice box would have been scrubbed, but it had been scrubbed.’
A Fish Out of Water
Mario Vargas Llosa
‘A democracy, I said, is driven by the electoral process, and in elections there are victories and defeats.’
The Press Officer
Alvaro Vargas Llosa
‘The threat of Fujimori was well hidden. There was nothing we could do: the die was cast.’
The Consultant
Mark Malloch Brown
‘Let the old politicians run against you. It will restore your political independence and make you unbeatable.’
In the Andes
Sergio Larrain
Sergio Larrain’s photographs of the Andes for Granta 36: Vargas Llosa for President.
Time’s Arrow (Part Three): The Conclusion
Martin Amis
‘Your shoulder blades still jolted to the artillery of the Russians as they scurried eastward.’
Sitting on Top of the World
T. Coraghessan Boyle
‘It was like floating untethered, drifting with the clouds, like being cupped in the hands of God.’
Plastic
Graham Swift
‘Sorting out the world! He should have sorted out himself and his own jeopardized household.’
The Unbearable Peace
John le Carré
‘It is a journalistic conceit to pretend you are unmoved by people. But I am not a journalist and I am not superior to this encounter.’
Of Bankers and Soldiers
Alex Kayser
Alex Kayser’s photographs of Swiss bankers and soldiers for Granta 35: The Unbearable Peace.
Switzerland Without an Army?
Max Frisch
‘Why should Switzerland of all places have no army? It costs billions and billions, but we can afford it.’
Václav Havel in Zürich
Friedrich Dürrenmatt
‘It so happens that the Swiss are a warlike people, even though no one has attacked us for over 200 years.’
In Summer Camps
Jayne Anne Phillips
‘The sky burned white to blond to powder to an almighty blue; the sun fell unobstructed.’
