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Nine Pints
Rose George
‘My blood is on its way to becoming something that even when given for free can be brokered and sold like ingots or wheat.’
What Silence Knows
Anthony Shadid
‘Words can’t quite re-create the smell of war. I have found myself trying to wash it out of my hair, off my fingers. More than once, I have run water over the soles of my shoes.’
To the Castle and Back
Václav Havel
‘I am announcing that I have returned from the USA. I thank all of those who worked in the domestic resistance. Likewise I thank all of us who worked in the foreign resistance.’
Court
Blake Morrison
‘One by one they’re led into the box. They swear their oath. They confirm their name, their employment, why they were where they say they were, what it was they saw.’
West
Carys Davies
Carys Davies' new novel is a mesmerising depiction of the uncharted wilderness beyond the Mississippi River
Karl Kraus and Veza
Elias Canetti
‘It was natural that the rumors about both these people should reach me at the same time; they came from the same source, from which everything new for me came at that time.’
Painter to the King
Amy Sackville
This is an excerpt from Painter to the King, Amy Sackville's account of the life of Diego Velázquez. Now available from Granta Books.
Terminus
Pedro Rosa Mendes
‘We hope that the copilot knows the terrain well. That his mask of youth conceals the face of a seasoned veteran of war. That he knows the minefields because he helped plant them.’
Who Killed Tolstoy?
Elif Batuman
‘I walked along the birch-lined alleys of Yasnaya Polyana, looking for clues. Snakes were swimming in the pond, making a rippling pattern. Everything here was a museum.’
The Great Israeli novel of War and Doubt
Anne Meadows
Granta editor Anne Meadows writes about Khirbet Khizeh, the great Israeli novel of war and doubt.
Khirbet Khizeh
S. Yizhar
‘No one knows how to wait like soldiers. There is no time or place that soldiers are not waiting and waiting.’
Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned
Wells Tower
‘Thanks to the easy wind bellying our sails, we crossed fast and sighted the island six days early.’
