Granta | The Home of New Writing

Explore Essays and memoir

A Land Without Strangers

Ben Mauk

Ben Mauk on nationalism and xenophobia in Poland.

A Language of Figs

Sema Kaygusuz

Sema Kaygusuz on the inheritances of genocide and historical memory, and what her own grandmother, a survivor of the Dersim Massacre in Turkey, taught her about life and language.

A Letter

Sławomir Mrożek

‘I draw your attention to football. The practice of this game threatens the basis of our very way of life.’

A Mischief of Rats

Joanna Kavenna

‘They slept curled together in a hammock, little scraps of fur, hearts beating madly.’ Joanna Kavenna on her pet rats, Kat Bjelland and Courtney Love.

A Night in the Engadine

John Kaag

John Kaag, author of Hiking with Nietzsche, camps out in the mountains of the Engadine where Nietzsche wrote Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

A Not-So-Pretty History of Pet Care

Daniel Magariel

‘One day after the next I would figure out what was needed, learn from my mistakes, pay attention to what worked.’

A Tour of Angola

Ryszard Kapuściński

‘You have to learn how to live with the check-points and to respect their customs, if you want to travel without hindrance and reach your destination alive.’

A Train in Winter

Caroline Moorehead

‘It was clear that not all would, or could, or would choose to, survive.’

A Trip to Syria

David McConnell

‘Several years ago, a friend and I stayed at the one hotel set amid the ruins of Queen Zenobia’s oasis capital, Palmyra, in the Syrian desert.’

A very young Dancer

Todd McEwen

‘I have a snapshot of the two of us: late on a summer afternoon we're playing in an inflatable wading pool.‘

A Walk to Kobe

Haruki Murakami

‘What I’m talking about is a different sea, and different mountains.’ Haruki Murakami walks to his hometown after the Great Hanshin earthquake of 1995.

A Warsaw Diary

Ryszard Kapuściński

‘In Poland we read every text as allusive; every situation described - even the most remote in time and space - is immediately applied to Poland.’

A Wolf in the Forest Wants

Sarah Moss

‘I biked to the hospital anyway, because it didn’t occur to me to think of an alternative form of transport.’

Sarah Moss on her admission to hospital.

A.L. Kennedy | First Sentence

A.L. Kennedy

‘I have never seen anyone eat figs in the street and feel I am unsurprised.’