Granta | The Home of New Writing

Explore Fiction

George and Elizabeth

Ben Marcus

‘She could see, or was starting to, that someone out there was seeing him, watching him.’

Her Lousy Shoes

Tracy O’Neill

‘On good days, he could believe that that was exactly what he appeared to be: pedestrian, a pedestrian, a walker, walking, going places, on the ups, possessing two healthy feet at least.’

Honk Honk to Udvada

Chandrahas Choudhury

‘Oh Uncle, it’s such a historical day,’ said Zahra. ‘The eight hundredth anniversary of our arrival in India after we faced so much persecution in Iran, and we’re going to such a big bash, and all you can think about is emus. What will Dr Billimoria think of our family?’

Horror Story

Carmen Maria Machado

‘The strangeness fed our discontent.’

Item Girls

Kuzhali Manickavel

‘I have heard the item girls singing each to each. / I do not think they will sing to me.’

Krapp Hour (Act 2)

Anne Carson

‘this is my theory of her awake all night worrying about little wild animals active in the dark’

The second instalment of Anne Carson’s fictional TV show.

Lady Neptune

Ann Beattie

‘The word money popped up like a bit of the ocean’s detritus riding in on a wave, but her lips formed the words ‘Merry Christmas’.’

Light

Lesley Nneka Arimah

‘When Enebeli Okwara sent his girl out in the world, he did not know what the world did to daughters.’ 2015 Commonwealth Short Story Prize – regional winner for Africa.

Look Out, Narendran!

Subha

A madman is dead set on blowing up the Taj Mahal, and there’s only one pair of detectives who can stop him. Tamil Pulp Fiction at its best.

Los Angeles

Ling Ma

‘My 100 ex-boyfriends and I hang out every day.’

Lucy the Liar

Patrick deWitt

‘Tell me it’s a lie, now. Will you say that it is?’

Nothing Ever Happens Here

Ottessa Moshfegh

‘I was broke, and I was a nobody, but I was happy.’

Numb

Lauren Schenkman

‘She felt things under the skin: scars where the body had torn during childbirth, clumps of cellulite, lobules and ducts.’

Old-Age Rage

Daisy Jacobs

‘He’s not himself’, Mum says in the kitchen. Well, who is he then? Is he 40 per cent of his young self? Ten? Do I still have to love him as much as ever, this 90 per cent stranger?