Granta | The Home of New Writing

In Broad Daylight

Two Poems

Mark Waldron

‘Something good leaks out of the world / Something bad leaks in’

Poetry by Mark Waldron.

Notes on Craft

Natasha Calder

‘What strikes me most, though, is how writers and climbers share an appetite for failure.’

Natasha Calder on bouldering.

Two Poems

Rae Armantrout

‘Sleep is my boyfriend, / my mother, my boss.’

Two poems by Rae Armantrout.

Ocoee

Kwame McPherson

Overall Winner 2023

‘I was alone and isolated. But I was not scared.’

Fiction by Kwame McPherson.

Fancy Little Spoon

hurmat kazmi

‘All sex is about letting go, I tell myself, and it is about time I do.’

Fiction by hurmat kazmi.

Two Poems

Maya C. Popa

‘the widening gap / between two kinds of life: the one lived and the one / remembered.’

Two poems by Maya C. Popa.

Podcast | Jamaica Kincaid

Jamaica Kincaid

‘The place we come from, the place we call home, is the home of our suffering.’

Jamaica Kincaid talks about finding her way to writing.

Mister, Mister

Guy Gunaratne

‘It was through the telly, Mister, that I learned how my Mothers saw themselves.’

An excerpt from Mister, Mister by Guy Gunaratne.

86

Natalie Shapero

‘it’s wrong / to let delicacies, even when suspect, go untried’

A poem by Natalie Shapero.

Oceans Away From My Homeland

Agnes Chew

‘At the entrance to the gynaecology clinic, I ring the bell.’

Fiction by Agnes Chew.

The Undertaker’s Apprentice

Hana Gammon

‘It was small and delicate and its song was simple but sweet – the perfect gift. The perfect offering.’

Fiction by Hana Gammon.

Notes on Craft

Colin Grant

‘Always I tell myself: yes, you transmit but do they, the readers, receive?’

Colin Grant on distilling truth in memoir.

Lech, Prince and the Nice Things

Rue Baldry

‘I spend the afternoon scarifying ceilings. My neck and shoulders are killing me by the time I leave.’

Fiction by Rue Baldry.

Kilinochchi

Himali McInnes

‘Parents should not have to bury their children. I will come to you, she whispers.’

Fiction by Himali McInnes.

Jealous Laughter

Joanna Biggs

‘She could not make me see my best qualities, but she could sit with me.’

Joanna Biggs on literary friendships between women.

Stupid Girls

Rhian Sasseen

‘It was 1 a.m., and it was Los Angeles; they were used to indiscretion.’

A story by Rhian Sasseen.

Stockholm

Yan Ge

‘I’m curious to know what you did with your milk there, Jacob said. Did you dump it, or, did you drink it?’

A story by Yan Ge.

Podcast | Claire-Louise Bennett

Claire-Louise Bennett

‘I want the reader to be conscious of reading and not being just drawn into the book and forgetting themselves and forgetting their life.’

Claire-Louise Bennett on her novel Checkout 19.

Giver

Molly Lynch

‘A single drop of milk clings to my right nipple like a promise. Or a taunt.’

A short story by Molly Lynch.

Podcast | Lynne Tillman

Lynne Tillman

‘In a sense we are always haunted by our past and what psychoanalysis is, for me, is not about cure but about understanding those ghosts.’

Lynne Tillman on her books Weird Fucks and Haunted Houses.

Introduction

Sigrid Rausing

‘What does the list tell us about the next generation or the state of the nation?’

The editor introduces the issue.

The Cloud Factory

Graeme Armstrong

‘There’s this paradoxical nostalgia where even though yi suffered, yi miss it.’

Memoir by Graeme Armstrong.

A Certain King

Jennifer Atkins

‘I didn’t think she was happy; I thought she was in love, but I didn’t know what that told me, if it told me anything.’

Fiction by Jennifer Atkins.

The Hair Baby

Sara Baume

‘She has been ten for a month and she does not like it. She carries the weight of her extra digit like a chain-mail vest.’

Fiction by Sara Baume.

A Dying Tongue

Sarah Bernstein

‘What needs explaining was that, and it was a funny thing, a very funny thing, I did not speak the language.’

An extract from Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein.

Universality

Natasha Brown

‘She boils her sentences down to high-sucrose sweeties and calibrates her tone for maximum engagement.’

Fiction by Natasha Brown.

Doubtful Sound

Eleanor Catton

‘I knew that Dominic had cheated on me. I couldn’t tell you when, or who, or how many times, but I was certain that he had.’

Fiction by Eleanor Catton.

She’s Always Hungry

Eliza Clark

‘I could hear the sea, and I could hear my own name.’

Fiction by Eliza Clark.

The Room-Service Waiter

Tom Crewe

‘There was to be an exhibition. There were lots of pictures like his, apparently – of waiters, pastry cooks, valets, bellboys.’

A story by Tom Crewe.

Strangers at the Port

Lauren Aimee Curtis

‘The other islands in the archipelago had their active volcanoes; now we had the men.’

An extract from Lauren Aimee Curtis’s forthcoming novel.

Ivor

Camilla Grudova

‘We were sent to Wakeley Boarding School aged eight for Year Five and stayed on until Year Twenty.’

Fiction by Camilla Grudova.

A Note in the Margin

Isabella Hammad

‘I register that phrase with pleasure, my brother.’

Isabella Hammad on migration, mentors and disappointment.

Theories of Care

Sophie Mackintosh

‘The monstrous years of my late teens lay lined up alongside the rest of my life like bullets in a gun.’

A story by Sophie Mackintosh.

Circles

Anna Metcalfe

‘He was grumpy in a way that I enjoyed. It reassured me that he was easily displeased – he was discerning, I thought.’

Fiction by Anna Metcalfe.

Wales

Thomas Morris

‘If Wales win tonight, everything will turn out okay.’

Thomas Morris on football, family and financial precarity.

Kweku

Derek Owusu

‘I don’t remember his face, nor him as a whole.’

Derek Owusu on fathers and family.