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White into Black
Martha Gellhorn
‘It is hard to believe that, in 1952, there were only two places on earth where blacks could not be insulted or mistreated simply because of their colour: Haiti and Liberia.’
House Style: Editing Brazil
Yuka Igarashi
‘We’re freaks . . . Why are we still talking about typos?’
The Fall of Saigon
James Fenton
‘I wanted to see a communist victory, which I presumed to be inevitable. I wanted to see the fall of a city.’
The Tin Drum In Retrospect
Günter Grass
‘With the baggage of stored-up material, vague plans and precise ambitions - I wanted to write my novel and Anna was looking for more rigorous ballet training - we left Berlin early in 1956 and, penniless but undaunted, went to Paris.’
Xiaolu Guo | My Writing Playlist
Xiaolu Guo
‘The challenge of flowing in one continuous outpouring of language in a novel is my killer.’
El Salvador: An Aide-Mémoire
Carolyn Forché
‘It is my feeling that the twentieth-century human condition demands a poetry of witness.’
Beirut Diary
Robert Fisk
‘The nun beside me on the helicopter this morning had a tight, self-righteous face.’
Road to Cambodia
James Fenton
‘The buildings were full of surprises. In one, surrounded by winking lights, the last abbot was lying in his coffin. He had died a year before, and it would be another two years before he was cremated.’
What Sheba Did Wrong
Zoë Heller
‘Women observing other women tend to be engrossed by the details—the bodily minutiae, the clothing particulars.’
Asking for it
James Hamilton-Paterson
‘Having my hair cut one morning in February 1999, I fell foul of one of those barber-shop discussions which are a feature of life here in Italy’.
Highlights of 2011 | Podcast
Ted Hodgkinson
A compilation of some of the best readings of 2011, including Binyavanga Wainaina reading from his memoir One Day I Will Write About This Place, Robert Coover’s reading of his online story ‘Vampire’ and Granta debut contributor Taiye Selasi's reading of ‘The Sex Lives of African Girls’.
