Granta | The Home of New Writing

Explore Essays and memoir

Cyprus United

Joe Dunthorne

‘The idea that football might provide an opportunity to overcome our dumber instincts seemed ridiculous now: football was a chance to set our idiocy free.’

Davos Woman

Trisha De Borchgrave

‘Did she process my gentle hand in the same way as the objectifying touch of the men before me? Did she know the difference?’

Dead in Venice

Masahiko Shimada

‘If I wasn’t a fish spawned in the Brenta river, why was I so compelled to keep returning?’ Masahiko Shimada on his many trips to Venice.

Desire | State of Mind

Andrea Stuart

‘My burgeoning sense of my own attractiveness, so fragile and recently developed, withered in this less than fertile ground.’

Écrire Avec Facultés Affaiblies

Fanny Britt

Comme il a grandi, j’ai pensé, puis j’ai passé la débarbouillette sous l’eau tiède du lavabo de la salle de bain.

Elif Batuman | Is Travel Writing Dead?

Elif Batuman

‘The power imbalance built into travel writing is just a heightened version of an imbalance that’s there in all writing.’

Eliza Griswold | Is Travel Writing Dead?

Eliza Griswold

‘Even in its subtler forms, the act of looking is an act of self-regard.’

Entwined

Judith Scott & Joyce Wallace Scott

‘Through her art, Judy found a way to create beauty from what others discarded and, most importantly, she found her voice.’

Explain Her to Me

Lucy Scholes

Lucy Scholes on Harvey Weinstein, #MeToo and Rebecca Solnit

Forbidden Games

Tia Wallman

‘We do not understand why, nor did we covet such long life, but here we are, our respective addictions and madness with us to the end.’

Gay and Depressed | State of Mind

Andrew Solomon

‘It would be a bit more tolerable if we lived in a society that didn’t blame depression on its victims.’

Geoff Dyer | Is Travel Writing Dead?

Geoff Dyer

‘What kinds of writing aren’t travel writing?’