Granta | The Home of New Writing

Letters from One Young Poet to Another

Laurent Gaudé | On Europe

Laurent Gaudé

‘Fervent social awareness and civic passion have deserted today’s Europe.’ Translated from the French by Alison Anderson.

Exile

Elif Shafak

‘The first time I heard the word exile – sürgün – in Turkish, I was a child. It struck me how closely it rhymed with another word: hüzün – melancholy.’

On the Island of the Black River

William Atkins

William Atkins visits the remote island of Sakhalin, following in the footsteps of Anton Chekhov.

Windrush Reflections

Anthony (Vahni) Capildeo

‘It is not informational, it is / not a blameshift, it is not / all-lives-matter top down and sideways blank.’

Homeland

Walter Kempowski

‘I was suckled by Mother Earth, he would reflect on occasion, and he would stretch, feeling new strength in his veins.’

Squish Me Tender

D. Mortimer

‘I wasn’t sure if I was having an orgasm or evolving.’

Making

Esther Rutter

‘Are you a writer who knits, or a knitter who writes?’

Fugato

Rafael Frumkin

New fiction from Rafael Frumkin, featuring psychiatrists brandishing DSM–5, delusions, transference and the menacing voice of Alex Trebek.

In Conversation

Robert Macfarlane & Adam Scovell

‘Travelling into the Ness for the first time was exactly like Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker

Robert Macfarlane in conversation with Adam Scovell.

Manifest

’Pemi Aguda

‘It is their turn to be silent. Your hand is throbbing in protest. There is blood on your knuckles.’ New fiction from ’Pemi Aguda.

Out of the Ashes

Geovani Martins & Julia Sanches

New fiction by Geovani Martins, with a translation and thoughts on translation from Julia Sanches.

Not the Foggiest Notion

Jung Young Moon

‘It didn’t matter to me what we would be doing or where. It didn’t matter to me in the least.’ Jung Young Moon, translated from the Korean by Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton.

[The Delicate Architecture of the Withdrawal Agreement]

Kevin Breathnach

‘I, the pulse. I, the task. I, the ions of the documents extant. I, I, I as in, irrealidad, ingles, intruido.’

Three Poems

Vi Khi Nao

‘To unfriend the refrain of sorrow / One must break the ribcage of a city’

Scissors

Karina Sainz Borgo

‘They reached Cúcuta at midday. All of them except the grandmother were hungry.’

Drawings of Monsters

Jesse Ball

‘When I was 4 or 5 I sent the Queen of England drawings of monsters.’

Neoterics and the Field
(out of Callimachus)

John Kinsella

‘This oven this earth as dust this water we watch vanish and ancient’

Connecting Worlds, Inventing Worlds

José Eduardo Agualusa & Daniel Hahn

José Eduardo Agualusa and Daniel Hahn on translating and being translated. ‘As a humble, invisible translator, I let him get the last word.’

Black Car

Will Boast

‘It got into you. How many scrapes had he seen? How many wrecks?’ New fiction from Will Boast.

Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones

Edoardo Albert

Edoardo Albert, author of Warrior, writes about five archaeological findings that brought the past to life.

The Cheffe

Marie NDiaye

‘She was proud, but there was no vanity in her pride.’

On Tastelessness

Adam O’Fallon Price

‘Write through your first ending is advice I give, again and again.’

Rebecca Solnit:
An Online Reader

Ivan Kirwan-Taylor

The seven must-read Rebecca Solnit essays.

Lauren Aimee Curtis | Notes on Craft

Lauren Aimee Curtis

‘I think that if we knew, really understood, the reasons why certain stories take hold of us, we would have no need for fiction at all.’ Lauren Aimee Curtis shares her notes on the craft of writing.

In the Cut

Susanna Moore

An excerpt from In the Cut, by Susanna Moore

Four Poems

Crispin Best

‘i feel good like a person / holding flowers on a train / feels dumb’

A Clean, Well-Lighted Place

Peter Stamm & Michael Hofmann

Peter Stamm on the oldest barber in Switzerland, and Michael Hofmann on translating Peter Stamm.

How to Take a Literary Selfie

Sylvie Weil

Sylvie Weil on what it means to take a literary selfie. Translated from the French by Ros Schwartz.

Jianan Qian | First Sentence

Jianan Qian

‘For every witness, history unfolded at some other time, and in some other place.’ Jianan Qian on the first sentence of her story, ‘To the Dogs’.

Real Men

Mohamed Mbougar Sarr

Anna Leader’s translation of ‘Real Men’ by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr is the winner of the 2019 Harvill Secker Young Translators’ Prize.

Sophie Lewis | Notes on Craft

Sophie Lewis

Sophie Lewis on the craft of translation.

The Bees

Dorothea Lasky

‘What is the swarm of bees that enters a poem when language is created?’

Lois and Varga

Lisa Taddeo

‘Shells, like the kind on the sand of the beach, that’s all they are. That’s all any of us are. All these colored shells, each one trying to be picked up before the rest.’ New fiction by Lisa Taddeo.

Little Nothings: Nabokov’s Road Notes

Elsa Court

Elsa Court on why Vladimir Nabokov immersed himself in the all-American world of roadside service stations.

Tale of Human Adventure

Diane Williams

‘The whole experience of writing this was enjoyable, as is the entire seriousness with which I take myself.’ New fiction by Diane Williams

Grief in Moderation

Diane Williams

‘The tiny daisies were scored by the shadows of the slats of the venetian blinds and the stripes were shivering.’ Diane Williams.