‘What clipped the wings of her fiction and grounded her imagination was precisely what made her soar as a journalist.’
Martha Gellhorn wrote frequently for Granta in the 1980s when, late in her life, she re-established her requtation as one of the century’s best reporters. She died on 15 February 1998, aged eightly-nine.
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‘I think there should be a National Service of Hospitality. The best way to see the true face of humanity is to serve it a plate of chips.’
Camilla Grudova on bad-mannered customers.
‘Anyone who has ever worked night shifts will understand the vertiginous feeling that comes with staring down the day from the wrong end.’
A.K. Blakemore on working nights.
‘I was constantly reading job ads, trying to find my holy grail – a job I could stand to do, and someone foolish enough to hire me.’
Sandra Newman on learning how to play professional blackjack.
‘I loved being a receptionist. What I loved about it was playing the part of being a receptionist.’
Emily Berry on being a temporary office worker.
‘Every part of you would swell, including your eyeballs, and no matter how much water you drank, you were always dehydrated.’
Junot Díaz on working for a steel mill.
‘If you like people who hate each other, it’s paradise.’
‘By coming to Tasmania, I'd repeated the pattern of an ancient, unknown relative and the discovery pleased me in a profound and mysterious way.’
‘At five in the afternoon, the Bahia de Abyla sailed out of Algeciras.‘
‘They called him Presidente Gonzalo, but his name was Abimael Guzmán. I had come to Lima to find Guzmán, although I knew I wouldn't succeed.’
‘At night her friends let loose and relax.’
Photography by Vera Yijun Zhou of house parties and clubs in Hangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing.
