Granta | The Home of New Writing

Explore Essays and memoir

The Ungrateful Refugee

Dina Nayeri

‘I was born in 1979, a year of revolution, and grew up in wartime.’ Dina Nayeri on growing up in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Best Book of 1952: The Palm-Wine Drinkard

Sandra Newman

Sandra Newman on why Amos Tutuola’s The Palm-Wine Drinkard is the best book of 1952.

The Poetics of Trauma

Ulf Karl Olov Nilsson

Swedish poet and psychoanalyst Ulf Karl Olov Nilsson on trauma, silence and linguistic analysis of asylum seekers. Translated from the Swedish by Peter Graves.

Best Book of 2014: H is for Hawk

Chigozie Obioma

Chigozie Obioma on Helen Macdonald’s H is for Hawk, the best book of 2014.

Karen Olsson | Notes on Craft

Karen Olsson

Karen Olsson shares her notes on the craft of writing: ‘Every book is an unsolvable problem, and yet every time I convince myself I’m just on the verge of cracking it.’

Harmflesh

Margie Orford

‘This burning girl that I am with skin stretched white hot across unfair flesh. Harmflesh.’

Best book of 2015: The Argonauts

Lucia Osborne-Crowley

Lucia Osborne-Crowley on why The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson is the best book of 2015.

Love After Abuse

Lucia Osborne-Crowley

Lucia Osborne-Crowley on the complexity of navigating sexuality while recovering from sexual abuse.

Orhan Pamuk | On Europe

Orhan Pamuk

‘In the part of the world where I come from, Europe is not just an ideal and a beautiful dream’ Translated from the Turkish by Ekin Oklap.

Surrender

Joanna Pocock

‘How could having sex with the Earth ever be consensual?’

Fires

James Pogue

‘In 2018 in northern California, 21,000 homes burned.’

Normalnost

Peter Pomerantsev

‘Is there another way to look at the Russianisation of reality?’

On Tastelessness

Adam O’Fallon Price

‘Write through your first ending is advice I give, again and again.’

Jianan Qian | First Sentence

Jianan Qian

‘For every witness, history unfolded at some other time, and in some other place.’ Jianan Qian on the first sentence of her story, ‘To the Dogs’.