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Doing the Work
Rachael Allen
‘We hated the tourists, but they were the reason we had jobs.’
Rachael Allen on working in a fish and chip shop in Cornwall.
Podcast | Allen Bratton
Allen Bratton
‘This set of characters are simultaneously medieval kings and modern aristocrats.’
Allen Bratton on adapting the Henriad and his debut novel Henry Henry.
Lin Yan
Cao Kou
‘They rented a room – a standard double, two twin beds with a nightstand between them.’
Fiction by Cao Kou, translated by Canaan Morse.
Doing the Work
Junot Díaz
‘Every part of you would swell, including your eyeballs, and no matter how much water you drank, you were always dehydrated.’
Junot Díaz on working for a steel mill.
Working Girls
A. Jiang
‘I tried to work out how many elements I would have plugged if I retired at sixty, and soon I was fatigued before a simple subtraction.’
Fiction by A. Jiang.
Piranhas and Us
Can Xue
‘An enormous black form rose from the water. Uncle Feng told me in a low voice to run fast.’
Fiction by Can Xue, translated by Annelise Finegan.
China Time
Thomas Meaney
‘At a time when China has become a unifying specter of menace for Western governments, this issue of Granta brings the country’s literary culture into focus.’
The editor introduces the issue.
Speedwell
Zhang Yueran
‘Fiction is a kind of spell, I said, and analysing a story is an exorcism. It loses all its mystery.’
Fiction by Zhang Yueran, translated by Jeremy Tiang.
Hunter
Shuang Xuetao
‘Lu Dong is a fifth-rate actor – that’s by his own ranking system.’
Fiction by Shuang Xuetao, translated by Jeremy Tiang.
White Night
Feng Li
‘For more than twenty years, photographer Feng Li has been documenting the people and backdrops of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, and one of the fastest growing cities on earth.’
Photography by Feng Li, introduced by Granta.
The Excitements of Spring
Zou Jingzhi
‘As a young man, I wanted to learn how to love, but in the end, I did nothing. I wanted to torture myself, but didn’t know where to begin.’
Fiction by Zou Jingzhi, translated by Jeremy Tiang.
Picun
Han Zhang
‘The stories being written by Picun writers and their peers show the effort and the ingenuity required to survive as migrant workers, builders of the economic miracle.’
Han Zhang on the New Workers’ Literature Group of Picun.
