Granta | The Home of New Writing

[3. Ekphrastic]

Honeymoon

Allen Bratton

‘On all sides he is surrounded by old people: jowly liver-spotted men in wrinkled suits, brown-toothed women in Thatcher drag, holding forth with tiresome decorum on coal imports, road safety, the economy of Northern Ireland.’

Fiction by Allen Bratton.

Podcast | Sheila Heti

Sheila Heti

‘It ended up taking fourteen years. But on the other hand, it only ended up taking five minutes.’

Sheila Heti on writing her latest book, Alphabetical Diaries, editing and the instability of a self-portrait.

Cracked Plate

Nicola Dinan

‘Later that day, Emma had thought of Nina while Toby fucked her in bed. Isn’t that fucked? Thinking about the other girl he was fucking. Her friend.’

Fiction by Nicola Dinan.

Bed of Nails

Kathy Stevens

‘I should warn you, she said, ketchup on her chin, on the back of her hand. I like to have sex a lot.’

Fiction by Kathy Stevens.

In Conversation

Robert Gluck & K Patrick

‘Desire charges the landscape with physical upheaval. We become water, weather. And why not? Why describe a character by the hat she is wearing instead of her experience of orgasm?’

Robert Glück and K Patrick on writing desire.

Power Metals

Nicolas Niarchos

‘The city, which is home to more than 300,000 people, is collapsing into the millions of shallow, square holes that have been cut into the ground.’

Nicolas Niarchos on mineral extraction in Manono, the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The Material

Camille Bordas

‘Rehearsing in front of the mirror was for actors, according to them, not comedians. It was for vain people. A good comedian was the opposite of vain, they said.’

Fiction by Camille Bordas.

Podcast | Andrew O’Hagan

Andrew O’Hagan

‘The world comes down on your head if you don’t tell people what they already believe to be true.’

Andrew O’Hagan on truth, journalism and fiction.

Aishwarya Rai

Sanjana Thakur

‘The shelter houses one hundred and fifty women who used to be or long to be or have no choice but to be Mothers.’

Fiction by Sanjana Thakur.

Dite

Reena Usha Rungoo

‘She collected stamps when she was younger, then switched to books, degrees, and – when she moved abroad – white lovers.’

Fiction by Reena Usha Rungoo.

The Devil’s Son

Portia Subran

‘He was prone to what he did call adventures, like if he had an irrepressible pull to wander every trace and tributary contained in Chaguanas.’

Fiction by Portia Subran.

What Burns

Julie Bouchard

‘Seven thousand forest fires are currently burning – fires which, under normal circumstances, would never even cross your mind.’

Fiction by Julie Bouchard, translated by Arielle Aaronson.

A River Then the Road

Pip Robertson

‘In good weather they went camping, meaning they slept in the station wagon with the seats down flat, in a car park at a forest or beach.’

Fiction by Pip Robertson.

Sinking Town

Amitava Kumar

‘The town’s fate was tied to poor development and ecological disaster.’

Amitava Kumar visits a Himalayan town.

Feminisms

Nikki Shaner-Bradford

‘We figured some facts might quell the speculation. It was our duty as friends to put her mind at ease.’

Fiction by Nikki Shaner-Bradford.

Brat

Gabriel Smith

‘There was a red patch, and what looked like a slightly raised piece of dead skin in the centre of my chest. Just to the right of where I assumed my heart was.’

An extract from Gabriel Smith’s novel Brat.

You Are the Product

Paul Dalla Rosa

‘I have a pathological addiction to the internet, which I indulge with the excuse of making art. It rarely translates to anything good and mostly leaves me overstimulated and afraid.’

Paul Dalla Rosa on excess and the internet.

You Are the Product

Rosanna McLaughlin

‘Like pretty much everyone who uses the internet, I have seen many terrible things that I did not search for and that I cannot unsee.’

Rosanna McLaughlin on what the internet thinks she wants.

You Are the Product

Lillian Fishman

‘What is the read receipt for?’

Lillian Fishman on texting, power and the ethics of leaving a friend on read.

You Are the Product

Daisy Hildyard

‘The anglophone world, we have to infer, has run out of words for its own feelings.’

Daisy Hildyard on the wisdom of scarecrows.

The Spread

Stacy Skolnik

‘It was the first teasing days of spring, the scent in the air a cross between death and cum.’

Fiction by Stacy Skolnik.

Two Poems

Sylvia Legris

‘rumors of bees on speedwell, / no oxidative stress just / effortless pollination’

Two poems by Sylvia Legris.

Podcast | Lauren Oyler

Lauren Oyler

‘You are what you do, and you are what you write, to some extent, I believe that at least.’

Lauren Oyler on personality, intention and the collapse between private and authorial selves.

It Is Decidedly So

Sara Baume

‘There is always a cat sitting on the kitchen windowsill, in the background of every ordinary and extraordinary event, a softly focused silhouette, a pair of piercing eyes.’

Sara Baume responds to twenty-nine photographs from Magnum Photos.

The One It Came All This Way For

Victoria Adukwei Bulley

‘all the furs & bright feathers won’t beat / the sunlight on my face like I’m the one it came / all this way for’

Victoria Adukwei Bulley writes four poems in response to twenty-eight photographs from Magnum Photos.

Sakraman

Derek Owusu

‘Between the boy and the fox there were no names.’

Fiction by Derek Owusu, in response to twenty-nine photographs from Magnum Photos.

In Conversation

m nourbeSe philip & Momtaza Mehri

‘I think the stories that cannot yet be told must be told, can only be told, by un-telling.’

Momtaza Mehri in conversation with m nourbeSe philip.

Introduction

Thomas Meaney

‘Culture has been bound up since the beginning with extraction.’

The editor introduces the issue.

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.