Five Things Right Now: Urvashi Butalia
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Wagner in Africa
James Pogue
‘Many people in the country seem happy to accept mercenaries in exchange for stability.’
James Pogue on the Wagner Group in the Central African Republic.
Prairie Dogs
Benjamin Kunkel
‘After making sure our guests all had the drinks and/or drugs they required, I put on a Sun Ra record.’
A short story by Benjamin Kunkel.
Working the Soil and the Cloud
Danny Franzreb & Atossa Araxia Abrahamian
‘Like all money, Bitcoin is valuable only to the degree that people believe in its value.’
Photography by Danny Franzreb, introduced by Atossa Araxia Abrahamian.
Where the Language Changes
Bathsheba Demuth
‘I am on the hunt for the Russian Empire, or what traces might still exist of its colonial enterprise.’
Bathsheba Demuth travels the Yukon river, following the history of the fur trade and the Nulato massacre.
The Extracted Earth
Thea Riofrancos
‘It’s perhaps hard to imagine a country with abundant mineral or oil reserves simply leaving that wealth underground. But there are precedents here, historical and contemporary.’
Granta interviews Thea Riofrancos.
Monkey Army
Eka Kurniawan
‘He did what people told him to do. He was a machine.’
A short story by Eka Kurniawan, translated by Annie Tucker.
The Last Freeminers of England
William Atkins & Tereza Červeňová
‘It is a principle of freemining that you leave nothing of value on site, nothing other than the mine itself, which is of value only to a freeminer.’
William Atkins visits the Forest of Dean, with photography by Tereza Červeňová.
Drone Wars for Mexico’s Gold Mountains
Anjan Sundaram
‘More than 111,000 people have gone missing in Mexico in the past six years.’
Anjan Sundaram on cartels, conflict and the rate of disappearances in Mexico.
The True Depth of a Cave
Rachel Kushner
‘When you live underground, among the things you discover is that you are not alone.’
Fiction by Rachel Kushner.
Death by GPS
Salvatore Vitale
‘The old romantic warning not to trust a machine more than one’s own intuition has renewed urgency in the digital age.’
Photography by Salvatore Vitale, introduced by Granta.
The Accursed Mountains
Christian Lorentzen
‘The heart was something that healed, but the best you could do with a broken tooth was to keep it in your pocket.’
Christian Lorentzen on tooth extraction.
As They Laid Down Their Cables
Laleh Khalili
‘The Eilat–Ashkelon pipeline went into operation in 1969, on the eve of the nationalisation of oil.’
Laleh Khalili on energy politics and the ‘secret’ pipeline transporting crude oil across southern Israel.
The Darién Gap
Carlos Fonseca
‘He thinks of himself as a man who has learned to be white by living among white people, though all it takes is a look in the mirror to realize his error.’
Fiction by Carlos Fonseca, translated by Jessica Sequeira.
On Boredom
Nuar Alsadir
‘Boredom is a complicated stink of an emotion, one that is far more layered than we presume.’
Nuar Alsadir on boredom.
All Fours
Miranda July
‘We decided then to tell each other exactly how a typical fuck played out in our marriages. We couldn’t believe we’d never done this before.’
Fiction by Miranda July.
The Alternatives
Caoilinn Hughes
‘What does that mean, vegan cheese? asks a lady who’d had no query about amuse-bouche.’
An extract from The Alternatives by Caoilinn Hughes.
In Conversation
Amelia Abraham & Jack Parlett
‘It’s true that public sex and cruising can be complicated, but I still believe in the solidarity that a look can forge between people.’
Amelia Abraham and Jack Parlett discuss cruising, nostalgia and the privatisation of public sex.
Podcast | Brandon Taylor
Brandon Taylor
‘How far can one deviate from the accepted pieties before one is kicked out?’
Brandon Taylor on naturalism and the future of fiction.
A Flat Place
Noreen Masud
‘If all things were equal, what were we even doing here? Why weren’t we lying on our living-room floors, watching the dance of the dust, today and every day?’
Memoir by Noreen Masud.
The New Life
Tom Crewe
‘He knew that he did not want it to stop, that he could not escape the grip of this terrible excitement.’
Fiction by Tom Crewe.
Two Poems
Momtaza Mehri
‘Rub my scalp and tell me who I could have been. / Feed me a morsel or two.’
Two poems by Momtaza Mehri.
Notes on Craft
Greg Jackson
‘It is hard to devote yourself to something that makes you feel constantly like an amateur.’
Greg Jackson on writing and teaching fiction.
Kings Of Cool Crest
Kate Lister Campbell
‘Fifty years I’ve played here, except for stretches in Arizona and Mississippi, after my divorce.’
Fiction by Kate Lister Campbell.
Buttermilk and Liverwurst
Phil Crockett Thomas
‘Incredibly, where her neck had once been, she could now see right through to the faded paisley paper on the opposite wall.’
Fiction from Phil Crockett Thomas.
At me and beautiful problems
Eve Esfandiari-Denney
‘ancestry.com fucks with my mind’
A poem by Eve Esfandiari-Denney.
Generation Gap
Lynne Tillman
‘A moment now swallowed in embarrassment, I asked a question only a young person might ask an older one.’
Lynne Tillman on trying to understand what makes a generation.
Generation Gap
Kate Zambreno
‘She didn’t trust us because, to her, tenants were like children.’
Kate Zambreno on negotiating with her older landlady.
Generation Gap
Sarah Moss
‘I’d been dubious about his company at first.’
Sarah Moss on watching Shakespeare with her twelve-year-old son.
Generation Gap
Oluwaseun Olayiwola
‘Listening to three white poets, whom I suspect are academics, talk about the state of poetry.’
Oluwaseun Olayiwola eavesdrops on an older generation.
Two Poems
Maya C. Popa
‘Things assume a sort of peace / if you accept life’s limitations.’
Poetry by Maya C. Popa.
Generation Gap
Allen Bratton
‘We meet at various points in the great swathes of the past that neither of us were alive to witness.’
Allen Bratton on a daytrip to a castle with his older boyfriend.
In Conversation
Isabel Waidner, Helen Macdonald & Sin Blaché
‘How does a writer transform a familiar object or character into an instrument of horror?’
Helen Macdonald, Sin Blaché and Isabel Waidner on defamiliarisation, multiple dimensions and constructing characters
