Granta | The Home of New Writing

Explore Essays and memoir

Fires

James Pogue

‘In 2018 in northern California, 21,000 homes burned.’

On Meeting Mrs Obama

Sarah Ladipo Manyika

‘Michelle’s story, while deeply rooted in the American story, speaks to experiences that are universal.’

Radicalisation in the Digital Age

Marc Weitzmann

Marc Weitzmann on how radicalisation happens in the digital age.

The Poem in the Pocket

Héctor Abad Faciolince

‘The note stated that it was by Borges, and I believed that, or at least I wanted to believe it.’

Ghostlands

Jennifer Kabat

Jennifer Kabat on the Anti-Rent War, one of the earliest moments of rural populism in the US, and something few know about outside the Catskill Mountains.

On High Heels and Lotus Feet

Summer Brennan

Summer Brennan on high heels, foot-binding, and our ongoing performances of gender.

A Night in the Engadine

John Kaag

John Kaag, author of Hiking with Nietzsche, camps out in the mountains of the Engadine where Nietzsche wrote Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

Dinah

Barbara Smith

Barbara Smith remembers her friend and cousin, Diana Athill.

10 Schools of Philosophy that should be better known (in the West)

Julian Baggini

The author of How The World Thinks: A Global History of Philosophy explains ten of the most overlooked philosophies from around the world.

Martin Goodman | Notes on Craft

Martin Goodman

Martin Goodman on why it took him twenty years to write his latest novel, J SS Bach.

The Nine Circles

Margo Rejmer

‘The body wants to escape suffering at all costs. The body wants to live.’

Introduction

Devorah Baum & Josh Appignanesi

‘Troubling though they may be, feelings also tell us something about power and its limitations.’

Touch

Poppy Sebag-Montefiore

‘Touch had its own language, and the rules were the opposite of the ones I knew at home.’

Lazy Boy

Josh Cohen

‘I don’t see him staring back at me from the La-Z-Boy, I see me, I see a crystalline image of my own burned-out soul’