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Root and Branch

Sana Valiulina

‘I am my father’s daughter, a former prisoner of war and “suspicious person” who spent ten years in the Gulag.’ Translated from the Russian by Polly Gannon.

Fateha

Sana Valiulina

‘While Fateha is fleeing westward with her children, another woman is trying to save herself from the city on the shore of the Sea of Azov.’

Memoir by Sana Valiulina, translated by Polly Gannon.

A Brief History of Fire

Jennifer Vanderbes

‘My happiness was so deep I was afraid to speak of it.’

Borne

Jeff VanderMeer

‘The map of the old horizon was like being haunted by a grotesque fairy tale, something that when voiced came out not as words but as sounds in the aftermath of an atrocity.’

Vladimir in Love

Lara Vapnyar

‘He regretted not buying the flowers.’

Summer Reads

Various

The Granta staff shares what they’re reading over the summer.

Wound

Oksana Vasyakina

‘Into the carrot-coloured bag, alongside my clothes, I put the box with Mama’s urn.’

An excerpt from Oksana Vasyakina’s Wound, translated from the Russian by Elina Alter.

Hungerwinter and Liberation

Jan Vegter

Jan Vegter’s remarkable visual and written record of the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, translated from the Dutch by Theo de Feyter.

Bulletproof Vest

Maria Venegas

‘Maybe you should consider moving’

Maria Venegas | Interview

Maria Venegas

Maria Venegas discusses ‘Bullet Proof Vest’, her essay from Granta 108: ‘Chicago’ about her criminal father, who ‘shot a man when he was twelve years old’.

The Color of Balloons

Dainerys Machado Vento

‘None of these people give a shit that a flock of birds is going to choke to death on those balloons, be they pink or blue.’

Fiction by Dainerys Machado Vento, translated by Will Vanderhyden.

The Projects

Camilo José Vergara

‘Chicago was the first large American city I visited after I came to the United States from my home country, Chile.’

A Child’s Book of Death and Dying

Abraham Verghese

‘A fine morning mist had rolled down over Addis Ababa from the Entoto mountains, leaving a sheen on the lawn between the apartment buildings'.

Soundings

Abraham Verghese

‘On the first day of June, 1972, I was taught how to percuss the body.’