Granta | The Home of New Writing

Explore Essays and memoir

A Prize

Christine Schutt

‘He picked our little sister’s laces loose and made her cry.’

A Strange Kind of Western

Rebecca Rukeyser

On seasonal work in Alaska and Kelly Reichardt.

A Summer’s Evening in Beijing

Elizabeth Pisani

‘The air is light with the intoxicating fumes of impending martyrdom.’

A Walk Through Manchester

Michael Symmons Roberts

‘The rich, tomato red that decorated most of my bedroom – curtains, lampshade, bedspread – and the pale, rinsed-out blue like a milky north-west sky that represented the other side.’

A Woman Wronged

Jeremy Seabrook

‘The dead do not leave us alone.’

A Woman’s Worth

Rajeswari Sunder Rajan

Rajeswari Sunder Rajan on the evolution of feminist judgments in India.

A World Run by Mothers

Saba Sams

‘In all the years I spent dreaming of motherhood, not once did I dream of men. If anything, I expected that romance would be my downfall.’

Saba Sams on the women who raised her, and becoming a mother at 22.

Africa Writes

Caitlin Pearson

The Royal African Society takes a look back at the history of the Africa Writes festival, their annual celebration of contemporary literature from Africa and the diaspora.

After Lockerbie

George Rosie

‘I’ve seen many images from the Lockerbie calamity since but none has stayed with me like the picture of Shannon’s pretty, smiling face.’

After Silk Road

Mike Power

‘The Dark Web is a shadow internet, an unindexed, unseen and lawless corner of cyberspace.’

Aliens and Us

Ken Thompson

‘Japanese knotweed is a terrific late-season source of nectar for both bees and hoverflies, but that’s not much of a headline, is it?’

All the Devils Are Here

David Seabrook

‘A seaside shelter in the middle of autumn – it seems a strange choice.’

An Education

Ariel Saramandi

‘Once, early on, before he learned such things were never said, my brother approached a white boy in his class with my mother’s maiden name and said they must be cousins. The violence in my family’s home started a year or so later.’