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First Course

Zoe Tennant

‘Indigenous chefs will tell you that their dishes are Indigenous, not Canadian. With the plate, these chefs demonstrate that the food is the land, and that the land is still theirs.’ Zoe Tennant on Indigenous cuisines.

When We Returned to Pakistan

Bina Shah

Bina Shah on growing up in Pakistan. ‘Culture shock was what they called it in those days, but to me it felt like a kidnapping.’

Two Poems

Jana Prikryl

‘his balance / between person and / abstraction’s so stirring I want no other token for anything can happen’

Postpartum

Geeta Tewari

‘I put the breast milk in the fridge and lie down on the bed. I pretend I am dead, underneath the earth with a bag of Cheetos.’

Her Left Hand, The Darkness

Alison Smith

Alison Smith on the week she spent with Ursula K. Le Guin.

Best Book of 1949: The Thief’s Journal

Holly Pester

‘To read it is to feel the alternative tempo in the rude repetitions of the thief who loves to steal.’

The Best Book of 1943: Two Serious Ladies by Jane Bowles

Kathryn Scanlan

Kathryn Scanlan on the best book of 1943: Two Serious Ladies by Jane Bowles.

Best Book of 1966: Season of Migration to the North

Ayşegül Savaş

‘Of course, literature cannot be separated from its flesh of language and form. Nor can its tangible subject explain why it moves its reader, through the subtleties of language, or the shadowy geographies that it leaves to the imagination.’

Best Book of 1947: Call Me Ishmael by Charles Olson

Chris Power

Chris Power on the Best Book of 1947: Call Me Ishmael by Charles Olson.

Best Book of 1935: Junichiro Tanizaki’s The Secret History of the Lord of Musashi

Naben Ruthnum

Naben Ruthnum on the best book of 1935: Junichiro Tanizaki's The Secret History of the Lord of Musashi.

Why Should You Be One Too?

Spencer Reece

Spencer Reece on alcoholism, homosexuality, and the poetry of Elizabeth Bishop.

Kathryn Scanlan | Notes on Craft

Kathryn Scanlan

‘I try to write a sentence as unbudging and fully itself as some object sitting on a shelf in my office.’

The Panther

Sergio Pitol

‘Haste did not grip the animal. He paced before me languidly, tracing small circles; then, in a single pounce he reached the fireplace.’

Introduction

Sigrid Rausing

Editor Sigrid Rausing introduces Granta 145: Ghosts.