Granta | The Home of New Writing

Explore Essays and memoir

Notes on Craft

Dee Peyok

‘I wanted to learn everything there was to know about the singer and his words.’

Dee Peyok on craft and the Cambodian musician: Sinn Sisamouth.

Particulate Matter

Amitava Kumar

‘India, as we know it, is changing. What will it become?’

Memoir by Amitava Kumar.

Beyond Deep Throat | Part I

Saskia Vogel

‘The eye wants to see its fill, the I wants to see how it feels.’

Saskia Vogel on the foundational stories of pornography.

Super-Infinite

Katherine Rundell

‘His poetry sliced through the gender binary and left it gasping on the floor.’

Katherine Rundell on John Donne.

Loopholes

Tice Cin

‘If you’re raised without these codes, if you’re not from ends, you won’t find the routes and you won’t find us.’

Tice Cin on class, housing estates and hood surrealism.

On Washing Up and Hoverflies

Beatrice Searle

‘It may be the satisfaction of full hands that brings forth the full feeling essential for words.’

Beatrice Searle on stonemasonry.

On Beyoncé

Okechukwu Nzelu

‘Renaissance gives back, by reminding Black queer people what it’s like to be in our most sacred spaces.’

Okechukwu Nzelu on Beyoncé.

Introduction

Sigrid Rausing

‘Enough grief. Enough, enough.’

The editor introduces the issue.

Reproducing Paul

Des Fitzgerald

‘Having a child, I came to see, was more a kind of haunting.’

An essay by Des Fitzgerald.

For the Love of Losing

Marina Benjamin

‘Winning, it turns out, was the cracking whip that meant gamblers had to stay where they were until they lost their money all over again.’

Marina Benjamin on losing.

Hôtel Casanova

Annie Ernaux

‘I never asked myself if I loved P. But nothing could have kept me from going to make love with him at the Hôtel Casanova.’

Memoir by Annie Ernaux, translated by Alison L. Strayer.

Many Words for Heat, Many Words for Hate

Amitava Kumar

‘In Delhi the heat is chemical, something unworldly, a dry bandage or heating pad wrapped around the body.’

Memoir by Amitava Kumar.

Ausländer

Michael Moritz

‘We were Jews and we were living in plain sight.’

Memoir by Michael Moritz.

The Public and Private Performance of the Deaf Body

Raymond Antrobus

‘There was always cynicism about Ray being a deaf novelty act.’

Raymond Antrobus on performance, Deafness and Johnnie Ray.