Granta | The Home of New Writing

Explore Fiction

An Evening of Martyrdom

Golnoosh Nour

New fiction from Golnoosh Nour’s debut collection about the lives of young, queer Iranians.

Golden Vulture

Jason Ockert

‘Last summer, the boy still believed in miracles. That’s why he disobeyed his father and crossed the bridge. He wondered, back then, if his mother might be over there.’

Ogadinma

Ukamaka Olisakwe

‘She began to count; it was easier this way, counting, because she would not have to remember how she felt. She only had to remember how long she had counted.’

Girl Games

Makena Onjerika

‘There, behind glass panes separating you from the good children, from life itself, you are kept company by your dread.’

Larger Than the Night

Masatsugu Ono

‘The night was sealed off completely – or so it seemed.’

The Hole

Hiroko Oyamada

‘The hole felt as though it was exactly my size – a trap made just for me.’

The Great Indian Tee and Snakes

Kritika Pandey

Kritika Pandey’s ‘The Great Indian Tee and Snakes’ is the overall winner of the 2020 Commonwealth Short Story Prize as well as the regional winner from Asia.

Solo

Ingrid Persaud

‘I wanted her to see me as a real man, with a little swagger, cool as this fall evening.’

An excerpt from Ingrid Persaud’s Love After Love.

Thick Legs

Natalia Borges Polesso

‘Was soccer a sign? I don’t think so, nearly all the girls had boyfriends, except for Greice and Kelli, and I didn’t have one because I was a puta, as they used to say, I hooked up with everybody.’

Selfish Little Thing

Olivia Rosenthall

‘I began to lie awake at night thinking about all the terrible things I’d ever done, listing them quietly in my head, each selfish little thing, my body numb with guilt.’

The Colour Brown

Renu Sabherwal

‘It was, she thought, like trying on made-to-measure garments that have been tailored for someone bigger, smaller, rounder, thinner than you could ever hope to be.’

Fable

Kathryn Scanlan

‘The girl’s curiosity often led her into troublesome situations, but she considered it part of the pact her soul had made in order to gain entrance to the world, and did not worry much over what befell her.’

New fiction from Kathryn Scanlan.

One Hundred Years and a Day

Tomoka Shibasaki

‘After a while people’s faces began to fade, and they came to seem like hoards of noppera-bō, faceless spirits gliding by.’

Two stories by Tomoka Shibasaki.

Farm Tennis

Rob Magnuson Smith

‘Nobody bothered him when he was playing tennis. No matter how long he stayed out there, the door never took breaks.’

Fiction by Rob Magnuson Smith.