Acts of Infidelity
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Naugahyde
Gordon Lish
A story of ageing infidelity: ‘He would seek to remember and she would seek to remember – each succeeding a little differently from the other.’
Two Poems
Gary Barwin
‘it’s philosophy / coming from everyone at once // like a ballgown worn by the sky’
Portrayal: A Double Portrait
Edward Doegar
‘You can’t control your face / The Empire has over-reached / Expressions // Have become flags’
Gwendoline Riley | Five Things Right Now
Gwendoline Riley
Gwendoline Riley on Caspar David Friedrich, sketching and Chekhov.
Dance of Order
Noh Suntag
‘I am exploring how the Korean War lives and breathes in contemporary Korean society.’ Photographs from Korea by Noh Suntag.
A Scale Model of Gull Point
Kate Folk
Trapped in a revolving restaurant during an American revolution, Shel VanRybroek turns to tin-foil sculpture.
The Boat
John Connell
John Connell writes of a trial and a murder during the Irish War of Independence.
Victim Politics
Ben Rawlence
‘The push and pull of identity politics is the child of slavery and empire.’ Ben Rawlence on empire and the construction of white identity.
Armadillo Man
Julianne Pachico
‘The Armadillo Man is watching her. She gives him a good show – the best she has to offer.’
The False Lords of Misrule
Peter Pomerantsev
Peter Pomerantsev takes us on a tour of the lewd, crude language of modern politics – from Trump to Putin to Duterte, Milo Yianopoulos, Boris Johnson and more.
The Passing of the Contemplative Life
D. Ptryrczwz
‘she was not among those / I’d expected I might meet’
The Comrades and I
Mona Abouissa
Mona Abouissa on her experiences with Egyptian communists, and the role they played in Egypt before 1952, when they were excised from official history.
Maureen N. McLane in Conversation
Maureen N. McLane & Rachael Allen
Granta’s poetry editor Rachael Allen talks to Maureen N. McLane about ecology, lyric authority, and balancing poetry with criticism.
4 3 2 1: Overture
Paul Auster
‘According to family legend, Ferguson’s grandfather departed on foot from his native city of Minsk with one hundred rubles sewn into the lining of his jacket’
An extract from 4 3 2 1 by Paul Auster.
The Island
Jack Underwood
‘She draws from her mind the image of a giant steel girder, pictures it smashing through the wall of the bar, obliterating everything, legs and arms reaching and waving.’
Night of the Gnomes
J.R. Wilcock
‘The plan was quite simple: Güendolina would invite him into the bedroom and persuade him to make love to her until he was utterly exhausted.’
Spiders from Jerusalem
Wioletta Greg
‘When the Holy Family was fleeing from Jerusalem, spiders wove such a thick web around the road that the swords of Herod’s soldiers couldn’t pierce it.’
Two Poems
Anthony (Vahni) Capildeo
‘Fingers twirl / composite stems whose colour / twist rock-candies, snake-ladders / precious yellow, less-rare green.’
Three Friends in a Hammock
April Ayers Lawson
‘I could not decide if love was real as a thing or something that could never entirely be proven, like God’
Best Book of 1818: The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr, by E.T.A. Hoffmann
Luke Neima
‘What sets Hoffmann’s work apart is the meeting of the joint impulses of Enlightenment and Romantic thought’
Best Book of 1982: Dictee by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha
Eleanor Chandler
‘While the terrible pain of speech is made clear, this book ultimately reminds us that we must not be silenced.’
Best Book of 1950: A Natural History of Trees by Donald Culross Peattie
James Pogue
‘Now more than ever environmentalists need to remember what it’s like to write for that real world.’
Best Book of 2016: Joanne Kyger’s On Time
Hoa Nguyen
Hoa Nguyen on why Joanne Kyger’s On Time is the best book of 2016.
Best Book of 2015: Thus Were Their Faces by Silvina Ocampo
Valerie Miles
‘Time is a rubber band, and in a single sentence, ghosts and alternative worlds superimpose’
Best Book of 1868: Dostoevsky’s The Idiot
Laurie Sheck
‘The beauty of The Idiot lies in its opposition to closed systems.’
Best Book of 1971: Malina by Ingeborg Bachmann
Kevin Breathnach
‘The novel submits to an internalized discipline: it is an observation machine’
Best Book of 1926: Red Cavalry by Isaac Babel
Sun Yisheng
His is a force more penetrative than all the bogus machismo of Hemingway.
Best Book of 2010: Mr Chartwell, by Rebecca Hunt
Emma Jane Unsworth
‘Hunt writes with brio, the visceral often blooming into the mystical.’
Best Book of 2013: When the World Became White by Dalia Betolin-Sherman
Mira Rashty
‘New poetic expressions can still emerge and evolve in Hebrew – an ancient and almost prehistoric language, with its grumbling sound’
