Issue 151

Eyal Weizman & Rana Dasgupta

‘Architecture can be employed as a form of violence and violation.’

Jon Fosse

‘To me writing is a kind of listening. I don’t know what I am listening to, but I am listening!’

Teju Cole

‘What is this elsewhere that one is longing to be in? Part of the answer to this question, for me, is Switzerland.’

Constantia Soteriou

We talk to the winner of the 2019 Commonwealth Short Story Prize.

Jonathan Levi

‘It’s a miracle that Granta survived our mutual adolescence.’

Mathias Enard & Ian Maleney

‘I think the moral issue is being more or less truthful to what you believe in, that’s the important thing, whoever the character may be.’ Mathias Enard and Ian Maleney in Conversation

Akwaeke Emezi & Halimat Shode

Amy Sackville

‘What is your guiltiest pleasure? Is it really a pleasure if you feel bad about it?’

William Atkins & Luke Neima

William Atkins in conversation about his new book, The Immeasurable World: Journeys in Desert Places.

Karl Ove Knausgaard

'What is your most unappealing habit? Maybe all the brain-like chewing gums I leave behind everywhere I work.'

Dominique Fortier & Rhonda Mullins

Translator and writer Rhonda Mullins in conversation with novelist and translator Dominique Fortier.

Kamila Shamsie & Eleanor Chandler

‘There’s a certain adrenaline rush that comes from not knowing.’ Kamila Shamsie on writing the unsaid, the challenges of adapting Antigone and the role of the novel in politics.

Rachel B. Glaser & Luke Neima

'If you can surprise yourself with your writing then it’s a lot more fun, and it’s a lot more interesting. That often involves creating characters you’ve never met or writing people that are not like you.’

Yaa Gyasi & Luke Neima

‘Place is something I'm fascinated by and how it shapes you in ways that are really hard to see and imagine’