Granta | The Home of New Writing

Beetle

Ersatz Panda

Lucy Ives

‘My greatest desire has always been to take people literally. It’s not the same as wanting to trust them, but it’s related.’

Tomb Song

Julián Herbert

‘Those who have been rejected come out with tears in their eyes, ashamed, folding the piece of paper with diagrams explaining why their blood isn’t right for the sacrifice.’

American Maniac

Rafael Frumkin

‘I would peel wrappers off sandwiches, remove noodles from their boxes, fry up meat before any authorities had the chance to track me and my bounty down.’

The Reckoning

Armand Garnet Ruffo

‘the earth will heal / eventually / magnificently / when our species / is gone’

Exquisite Corpse

Frances Stonor Saunders

‘Europe awoke to a freezing post-war dawn. The winter of 1947 was the worst ever recorded.’

The Agony and Ecstasy of Escape

Will Boast

Will Boast on how Bernini's Apollo and Daphne helped him write his latest novel

Introduction

Sigrid Rausing

Sigrid Rausing introduces Granta 142: Animalia.

The Taxidermy Museum

Steven Dunn

‘Even dying is an attempt to approach life. That’s how I perceive taxidermy.’

The Astronaut

Christina Wood Martinez

‘I made tea while the astronaut sat at our kitchen table and gazed out the window.’

The Last Children of Tokyo

Yoko Tawada

‘Encountering a real animal – not just its name – would have set Mumei’s heart on fire.’ Translated from the Japanese by Margaret Mitsutani.

Issue

Cormac James

‘I want you to close your eyes. I want you to relax, let go. I want you to let your mind see as vividly as possible the images my words conjure up. And above all, no matter what I say, I want you to trust me.’

Broken Animals

Britta Jaschinski

‘These bored, frustrated and hungry animals appear as reluctant figures in some unsolvable puzzle, or as victims of a grand experiment whose original purpose is lost in time.’

Slaughterhouse

Arnon Grunberg

‘I wonder whether there’s a real moral difference between killing an animal and killing a human being.’ Translated from the Dutch by Sam Garrett.

Cows

Adam Nicolson

‘All in it together but not in it together at all.’

Home

Emily Critchley

‘to understand life / how to possibly / live in it / break it’

On Coyotes

Diane Cook

‘There is something about the presence of coyotes that makes any place feel wilder than it is.’

Rocky Raccoon

DBC Pierre

‘The mask said everything. This was a thief. A schemer and a thief.’

A Prize

Christine Schutt

‘He picked our little sister’s laces loose and made her cry.’

The Rat Snipers

Ben Lasman

‘When they stand on their hind legs, arms up, wrists limp, rats can take on a beguiling sort of personhood.’

The Kabul Markhor

Nell Zink

‘He felt very lonely after spending the winter holed up in his cabin eating Doritos.’

A Moveable Beast

Helge Skodvin & Ned Beauman

‘Taxidermy offers animals both a second life and a second harassment by the Anthropocene.’ Ned Beauman introduces the photography of Helge Skodvin.

Tyger, Tyger

Aman Sethi

‘A man-eating tiger was on the prowl when I arrived in Pilibhit one rainy evening in September.’

Dog

Nadeem Aslam

‘More than once the new dog was aggressive, a stab of fire, but I did not tell the grown-ups. I feared they would take him away.’

Speedy

Evie Wyld

‘Speedy wanted to swallow the world.’

Winterkill

Cal Flyn

‘Wildlife foundations find themselves calling for the deaths of tens of thousands of wild animals.’

Swifts

Adam Foulds

‘Swifts come closer than any other creature to living in the sky and having air and ceaseless movement as their home.’

Animal Studies

Elliot Ross & Alexander MacLeod

‘The title of this series of photographs is Animal Studies, but I am not sure about that second word. A noun or a verb? A thing or an action? Are these studies of animals or are these animals studying?’ Alexander MacLeod introduces the photography of Elliot Ross.

Snakes

Dorothea Lasky

‘In this life // There is always time // To make a comeback’

The Farmer’s Son

John Connell

‘I’m twenty-nine and I’ve never delivered a calf myself. But that’s all about to change’

The Falconer and the Hawks

Ben Crane

‘A fine balance of precision and coiled unsparing instinct, all contained within a gossamer skein of feather, skin, muscle and bone.’

Swine

ko ko thett

‘I rode bareback, I rode out all the revolutions.’

Magpie

Esther Woolfson

‘His life was one of calculation and endeavour, of learning and watching, remembering and trying.’

Loggerheads

Rebecca Giggs

‘What idiom or instrument captures how the weather is felt by the animals, in their bodies, their nests and niches?’

Large Black Rooster

Daniyal Mueenuddin

‘Early one morning in the month of June, someone ran over a huge black rooster on County Road W in Wisconsin hill country.’

Web

Joy Williams

‘She was Some Pig. Her eggs easily incorporated the human genetic code. All her piglets were star patents.’