George Saunders In Conversation | Podcast
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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
Introduction
Thomas Meaney
‘The Generations issue of Granta offers different age cohorts a chance for mutual inspection.’
Thomas Meaney introduces the issue.
Repetition
Vigdis Hjorth
‘The people she longed to be understood by, the ones at whom her anxious hope was pinned, were her parents.’
Fiction by Vigdis Hjorth, translated by Charlotte Barslund.
Ecce Senex: Stephen James Joyce
James Scudamore
‘He was “a Joyce, not a Joycean”, yet considered himself the supreme arbiter of what constituted valuable Joyce scholarship. At the same time, he admitted that he rarely read anything in full.’
James Scudamore on trying to ghostwrite Stephen James Joyce's memoir.
The Sensitivity Reader
Andrew O’Hagan
‘Human nature is not improved by concealment, especially when it comes to the past.’
A short story by Andrew O’Hagan.
The Millennial Mind
Anton Jäger
‘Millennials were more than willing to bargain by riot.’
Anton Jäger evaluates the millennial generation.
Nearly White Girl Girling on Behalf of Sonic Fluency
Eve Esfandiari-Denney
‘I hope to hear the spirit of my mother’s native pessimism faintly pass through a line of translated poetry’
Poetry from Eve Esfandiari-Denney.
A Good First Marriage is Luck
Sheila Heti & Phyllis Rose
‘Life is so difficult. It may take more than one creature to sustain one life.’
Sheila Heti in conversation with Phyllis Rose.
You’re a Londoner
Kalpesh Lathigra & Guy Gunaratne
‘For you, an image makes sight sacrosanct. It wasn’t always like that.’
Guy Gunaratne introduces photography by Kalpesh Lathigra.
Stalin, Lenin, Robespierre
Brandon Taylor
‘He tried to think about what sort of person he wanted to be in this world and how he might bring that about.’
Fiction by Brandon Taylor.
Proper Country
Ralf Webb
‘It was by necessity, not choice.’
Ralf Webb on returning to the West Country.
Lifetimes of the Soviet Union
Yuri Slezkine
‘Bolshevism, like most millenarian movements, proved a one-generation phenomenon.’
Yuri Slezkine on Soviet history and the generational arc of revolution.
The Attaché’s Wife
Karan Mahajan
“I’m from here. I grew up here. In fact, that’s why the government invited me back for this work.”
Short fiction by Karan Mahajan.
Isabel
Lillian Fishman
‘Diana saw that Lucy’s appeal was in the nostalgia of her looks: Hers was a teen beauty, at home nowhere more than in a miniskirt.’
Fiction by Lillian Fishman.
The Full Package
Zoe Dubno
‘I wasn’t against fashion; I wasn’t one of those people who need to make it into a whole statement about their intellect.’
Fiction by Zoe Dubno.
Shooting Stars in Your Black Hair
Joanna Biggs & Jack Latham
‘To be in a hair salon is to be bubble-wrapped against the world – or at least that’s the fantasy.’
Joanna Biggs on salons, intimacy and the photography of Jack Latham.
