Granta | The Home of New Writing

The Naming of Moths

Whale Fall

Rebecca Giggs

‘The whale as landfill. It was a metaphor, and then it wasn’t.’

Lady Neptune

Ann Beattie

‘The word money popped up like a bit of the ocean’s detritus riding in on a wave, but her lips formed the words ‘Merry Christmas’.’

Nature Morte

Helge Skodvin & Audrey Niffenegger

‘The ghost in the machine is gone for good.’

The Legacy

Fred Pearce

‘It created not just a climate of fear, but also a landscape of secrets.’

Travesty

Ange Mlinko

‘the victim of a mythological punishment.’

Upriver

Kathleen Jamie

‘I liked the way she travelled: with her iPod in one pocket, her traditional Yup’ik woman’s knife, or ulu, in the other.’

Mouse Trails

Noelle Kocot

‘What I am equipped to do is different / Than what I have been called for.’

The Hand’s Breadth Murders

Adam Nicolson & Gus Palmer

‘It is what happens in a place where revenge is the only justice.’

The Middle Ages: Approaching the Question of a Terminal Date

David Szalay

‘What is left? What is he to wrap himself in, now that everything has floated off into space?’

Come Again/Woods

Maureen N. McLane

‘They party in the woods / as if they were meant for pleasure / not timber.’

To the Ocean

Deb Olin Unferth

‘At the desk they said they encouraged guests not to walk, but she was determined’

Hunters in the Snow

Andrew Motion

‘The hunters have all failed, / the three hunters and their forlorn dogs / now arriving home from the mountain / which thunders above their village’

Fragments

Roger Deakin & Robert Macfarlane

‘Entering a wood is to enter an element as different as the sea.’

About the Cover

Stanley Donwood

‘I took myself off to the woods, the fragments of the great forests that once spread over our continent.’

Lessons

Diana Athill

‘My two valuable lessons are: avoid romanticism and abhor possessiveness.’

Los Angeles

Ling Ma

‘My 100 ex-boyfriends and I hang out every day.’

A short story by Ling Ma.

An (almost) perfect day

Anne De Gelas

‘I think of the self-portrait as a mirror of all the violence that befalls us.’

Five Things Right Now: Joanna Walsh

Joanna Walsh

Joanna Walsh shares five things she’s reading, watching and thinking about.

Two Poems

Rae Armantrout

‘My long career / in explaining / my career.’

Horror Story

Carmen Maria Machado

‘The strangeness fed our discontent.’

We Were Holy Once

Amber Sparks

‘We see things most folks can’t.’

Delira

Hitomi Kanehara

‘I steadied my trembling legs and yelled, “Welcome to Delira!” ’

Two Poems

Caitlin Scarano

‘didn’t antlers grow from his head / whenever my mother’s back was turned?’

Substitutes

Ben Hoffman

‘Did you notice our daughter is not our daughter anymore?’

Users Manual

Julián Herbert

‘If you require further specifications, please consult your local supplier. They will be happy to help.’

Eliphaz

Raven Leilani

‘I sent messages in nine point font / arcing through the Internet, asking him / do you believe in our heavenly Father?’

Saving Mesopotamia

Alexandra Lucas Coelho

‘What they are excavating is the birth of a civilisation.’

The Intoxicated Years

Mariana Enríquez

‘They cried as if they weren’t to blame for any of it. We hated innocent people.’

Greg Jackson | First Sentence

Greg Jackson

‘I am being, I believe, about as forthright as I am being coy.’

Five Things Right Now: Petina Gappah

Petina Gappah

Petina Gappah shares five things she’s reading, watching and thinking about right now.

The Tattoo

Maciej Milkowski

‘We missed our moment, reading the classics in semi-virtual travel agencies.’

Blade Culture

Atticus Lish

‘As a kid, he played video games and roughhoused on the beach and joined a gang.’

Mz N Contemporary

Maureen N. McLane

‘I gave my love and that stone / I gave my love still ring’

The Landlady

Geling Yan

‘After all, they were landlady and tenant; what right did he have to meddle?’

Robertus Heimric, Welcome Back

Upamanyu Chatterjee

‘He was the one survivor who remembered nothing.’

Hotel Haunting

Joanna Walsh

‘There was a time in my life when I lived in hotels. Around this time, the time I did not spend in hotels was time I did not live.’