Granta | The Home of New Writing

Explore Fiction

The Heavens

Sandra Newman

‘It was one of those parties where no one knew the hostess.’

No Machine Could Do It

Eugene Lim

‘In the future we have to be as interesting to the AI as our pets are to us.’

The Woman Dies

Aoko Matsuda

‘The woman dies. She dies to provide a plot twist. She dies to develop the narrative. She dies for cathartic effect. She dies because no one could think of what else to do with her.’ Aoko Matsuda, translated from the Japanese by Polly Barton.

Ghost Wall

Sarah Moss

An excerpt from Sarah Moss's Ghost Wall, published by Granta Books.

Hoarfrost

John Patrick McHugh

Can infidelity make up for infidelity? New fiction from John Patrick McHugh.

Parfait

Hiromi Kawakami

‘He comes all the way here after he died and the two of you are making small talk?’ New fiction by Hiromi Kawakami, translated from the Japanese by Allison Markin Powell

The Restaurant of Many Orders

Kenji Miyazawa

‘Two young gentlemen dressed just like British military men, with gleaming guns on their shoulders and two dogs like great white bears at their heels, were walking in the mountains where the leaves rustled dry underfoot.’

How Much Heart

Mieko Kawakami

A triptych of flash fiction by Mieko Kawakami, translated from the Japanese by David Boyd.

Jennifer

Amitava Kumar

‘I was overcome by a feeling that took root then and has never left me, the feeling that in this land that was someone else’s country, I did not have a place to stand.’

The Swimmer

Tom Lee

‘I wondered what an onlooker might make of this man, this scene.’

The Dive

Samsun Knight

‘What’s wrong is that she cannot breathe.’ Samsun Knight’s ‘The Dive’ is the winner of the 2018 Disquiet Literary Prize

Gooseen

Nuala O’Connor

Nuala O’Connor’s short story about Nora Barnacle, and her first meetings with James Joyce.

Fathers and Sons

Benjamin Markovits

‘For a while it wasn’t clear how good he would become, and then it was. He went up the rankings, stopped, and started going down.’

Brother in Ice

Alicia Kopf

‘My brother is a man trapped in ice. He looks at us through it; he is there and he is not there.’