Granta | The Home of New Writing

Days of Ruin

Click-Wrap

Ida Börjel

‘You know about my / emotional drinking, and my night walks and my / fragmented heart-to-heart conversations.’

All Species Have the Same Life

Emanuele Coccia

‘I have in me the vestiges of an endless series of living beings, all born of other living beings.’

Cosmos

Tishani Doshi

‘Remember when we were / young and the end was a black hole at the edge of forever, / a million light years away.’

Clarity

Ruchir Joshi

‘I was close to my own father, which many people are not.’

Ruchir Joshi remembers his son.

Already Two

Vladimir Mayakovsky

‘I’m in no hurry; I’ll not storm your dreams’

Words for Woman

Susana Moreira Marques

‘What we need, now, is: Mrs Dalloway in London, but as an immigrant’

How much faith can we place in coronavirus antibody tests?

Megan Price, Morgan Agnew & David Peters

Why is it so hard to roll out accurate antibody tests? Statisticians break down the challenges that come with testing for coronavirus immunity.

In Conversation

Saskia Vogel & Jen Calleja

‘Narrative is control, dominance, purposeful withholding, flirting’

What History Tells Us About Epidemics

Sandra Hempel

‘From when we first began living together in settlements, bacteria and viruses were with us, replicating, mutating and jumping species with extraordinary agility.’

Fable

Kathryn Scanlan

‘The girl’s curiosity often led her into troublesome situations, but she considered it part of the pact her soul had made in order to gain entrance to the world, and did not worry much over what befell her.’

New fiction from Kathryn Scanlan.

The Smart House of Mrs O

Lincoln Michel

‘I looked around at my apartment, wondering if there was anything gazing back.’

New fiction from Lincoln Michel.

War and Virus

Vesna Maric

‘Wars, national disasters and pandemics do not cause social disintegration – they reveal it, and deepen it.’

Vesna Maric on the difference between wars and viruses.

The Pandemic, Our Common Story

Anna Badkhen

Anna Badkhen was researching Eden – the origins of humanity in the Afar Triangle of East Africa – when coronavirus broke out across the world.

Mudchute

Tom Betteridge

‘held at the curve of the eye / for a dream of shared life’

In Conversation

Kathryn Scanlan & Kate Zambreno

‘When a day is not structured by appointments, meetings, driving to work, taking lunch, driving home, shopping (i.e. capitalism), its soft, loose (wild?) shapelessness becomes apparent.’

Exciting Times

Naoise Dolan

‘There was something Shakespearean about imperious men going down on you: the mighty have fallen.’

Naoise Dolan’s Exciting Times is shortlisted for the 2020 Young Writer of the Year Award.

In Conversation

Jenny Offill & Mark O'Connell

‘This isn’t the end of the world. It’s history going about its business. This isn’t the last apocalypse by a long shot.’

Jenny Offill, author of Weather, talks to Mark O’Connell, author of Notes from the Apocalypse.

Three Poems

Hannah Regel

‘It makes no difference / If the devil has been defeated or if it is your character’

The Shrouds on the Glacier du Rhône

Simon Norfolk & Klaus Thymann & Francis Hodgson

Photographs of the Rhône Glacier by Simon Norfolk and Klaus Thymann, with an introduction by Francis Hodgson.

Più Vivo

Diane Williams

‘You’ve seen I’m sure a performer on stage stock-still – during which time he waits for his ovation. This is how I am these days.’

New fiction from Diane Williams.

The Lessons We Choose

Beth Gardiner

This will not be the last crisis. What can we learn from this one?

Plague Diary: March

Gonçalo M. Tavares

A coronavirus diary from the Portuguese writer Gonçalo M. Tavares, translated by Daniel Hahn.

Farm Tennis

Rob Magnuson Smith

‘Nobody bothered him when he was playing tennis. No matter how long he stayed out there, the door never took breaks.’

Fiction by Rob Magnuson Smith.

Interview

Jon Fosse

‘To me writing is a kind of listening. I don’t know what I am listening to, but I am listening!’

This Time of Dying

Reina James

An extract from This Time of Dying by Reina James.

Some Rivers Meet

James Clarke

‘What a thing it must be to lose your marbles on your own, with not even enough milk in the fridge for a proper brew.’

Fiction by James Clarke.

The White Dress

Nathalie Léger

Nathalie Léger, translated from the French by Natasha Lehrer.

In Conversation

Morgan Parker & Rachel Long

‘Everyone should be thinking about how they do their thing specifically, how they can use their influences combined with their own language, music and experience.’

City of Pigs

David Hayden

‘I have heard there is a city of pigs thirty miles from our city. I imagine it is only a farm. I cannot imagine a city of pigs.’

New fiction by David Hayden.

Island Song

Madeleine Bunting

An extract from Madeleine Bunting’s first novel.

Mama’s Last Hug

Frans de Waal

‘Watching behaviour comes naturally to me, so much so that I may be overdoing it.’

Line A—B

Mark Blacklock

‘Never was a man so deep in thought.’
An extract from Mark Blacklock’s new novel.

The Medical Detective

Sandra Hempel

An extract from Sandra Hempel’s The Medical Detective, which follows the story of the man who identified – and helped stop – the cholera pandemic of the 1830s.

Malliga Homes

Sindya Bhanoo

Winner of the Disquiet Prize for Fiction 2020.