Explore Essays and memoir
Sort by:
Sort by:
The Medical Detective
Sandra Hempel
An extract from Sandra Hempel’s The Medical Detective, which follows the story of the man who identified – and helped stop – the cholera pandemic of the 1830s.
Absolution
Adriana Carranca
A former child soldier in the Lord’s Resistance Army tells his story.
Notes on Craft
Deb Olin Unferth
‘People (not me) seem to find chickens inherently funny.’
From the Spanish Flu to Covid-19
Reina James
‘Understanding how the world could be so ravaged in 1918 may give us more chance of coping with the current pandemic.’
Reina James compares our response to Covid-19 to the reaction to the Spanish Flu in 1918.
The Knowledge
Barclay Bram
Barclay Bram on the infamous London black cab exam, and how communal knowledge is changing.
The Beach
Laura Cumming
An excerpt from On Chapel Sands, which has recently been shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize 2020.
Red Sands
Caroline Crampton
‘They appear against the horizon as the boat slowly sweeps closer into the estuary.’
Caleb Klaces | Notes on Craft
Caleb Klaces
Caleb Klaces on being inspired by Van Gogh’s third image, found during the X-ray scanning of one of Van Gogh’s early, repainted canvases.
Jem Calder | Notes on Craft
Jem Calder
‘I wrote in the address bar of my web browser, in spreadsheet cells, in emails I addressed to myself.’ Jem Calder on writing fiction at his day job.
Introduction
Sigrid Rausing
‘We take our theme from Pwaangulongii Dauod’s remarkable eulogy to the late Kenyan writer Binyavanga Wainaina.’
Editor Sigrid Rausing introduces Granta’s 150th issue.
Carolyn
Andrew O'Hagan
‘Where was Denver in all of this, or the wide open road to Mexico, or the woman, hip to the souls of sensitive men, who was played on-screen by Sissy Spacek and later by Kirsten Dunst?’
Andrew O’Hagan remembers Carolyn Cassady, beat writer and widow of Neal Cassady.
