‘I really love Southern Gothic literature and so part of me was like – well, what if I could create an Immigrant Gothic?’
Granta Magazine’s Josie Mitchel speaks to Esmé Weijun Wang , author of The Border of Paradise about being one of Granta’s 2017 Best of Young American Novelists.
They discuss the largeness of literature, the Southern Gothic genre and what it means to be an American novelist.
‘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.
‘Listening to three white poets, whom I suspect are academics, talk about the state of poetry.’
Oluwaseun Olayiwola eavesdrops on an older generation.
‘I’d been dubious about his company at first.’
Sarah Moss on watching Shakespeare with her twelve-year-old son.
‘She didn’t trust us because, to her, tenants were like children.’
Kate Zambreno on negotiating with her older landlady.
‘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.
‘Dennis with his bespectacled eyes on his phone, performing the act of emotional multitasking. While I’ve been psychotic, he’s been phone banking.’
‘I’m simply trying to do good, Sharon, in the way that I can.’
Fiction by Marie NDiaye, translated by Jordan Stump.
‘When and where does the crisis of war begin and end?’
Y-Dang Troeung on the longevity of war.
‘How many children had accidentally – or purposely, for that matter – shot a parent? Too many to count, no doubt.’
Fiction by André Alexis.
‘Those men and women don’t want rubber. They are after something more ethereal but fearsome: the conversion of souls.’
Fiction by Carlos Fonseca, translated by Megan McDowell.
‘What we’re arguing about turns out to be how to speak to each other at all.’
