Granta | The Home of New Writing

Explore Essays and memoir

Best Book of 1981: Lanark

Lorna Gibb

Lorna Gibb on why Alasdair Gray's Lanark is the best book of 1981.

Best Book of 1984: Amalgamemnon

Joanna Walsh

Joanna Walsh on why Christine Brooke-Rose's Amalgamemnon is the best book of 1984.

Best Book of 2003: The Curious Life of Robert Hooke

Daisy Hildyard

Daisy Hildyard on why Lisa Jardine's The Curious Life of Robert Hooke is the best book of 2003.

Best Book of 2006: The Re-Emergence of Global Finance

Oliver Bullough

Oliver Bullough on why Gary Burn's The Re-Emergence of Global Finance is the best book of 2006.

Best Book of 2008: The Alphabet

Rae Armantrout

Rae Armantrout on why Ron Silliman's The Alphabet is the best book of 2008.

Best Book of 2015: After The Dance

Dimitry Elias Léger

Dimitry Elias Léger on why Jan Gaye's After the Dance is the best book of 2015.

Best Book of 2017: Shadowbahn

Jonathan Lethem

Jonathan Lethem on why Steve Erickson's Shadowbahn is the best book of a year to come.

Best Story of 1965: ‘Everything That Rises Must Converge’

Aimee Bender

Aimee Bender on why Flannery O’Connor's ‘Everything That Rises Must Converge’ is the best story of 1965.

Breach Candy

Samanth Subramanian

‘There are clubs like the Breach Candy Club all over the Indian subcontinent: relics of the Raj, institutions that were set up as bolt-holes for the British, where they could retreat to row or swim or play cricket or race horses.’

Budapest 2015

Wojciech Tochman

‘To the delight of the little kids, who had seen a good deal of killing in their lives, a middle-aged man blew soap bubbles.’

Cairo: September 2014

Wiam El-Tamami

‘Over the past few months, the government has been ad-libbing the time.’

Dr J

Kalpana Narayanan

‘My father has his own language for everything. When I finished my MFA, I was a NINJA: No Income, No Job, No Assets.’

Driving in Greater Noida

Deepti Kapoor

‘Greater Noida is a paranoid, fractured land.’

Empathy and the New Refugee Crisis

Charlotte McDonald-Gibson

‘What does it take to remind people that you are human?’