Granta | The Home of New Writing

Explore Essays and memoir

Jenni Fagan | My Writing Playlist

Jenni Fagan

Best of Young British Novelist Jenni Fagan selects five songs that she loves to write to.

Helen Oyeyemi | My Writing Playlist

Helen Oyeyemi

Helen Oyeyemi on what she listens to while writing and editing.

Playing the Odds

David Szalay

‘What, I wonder now, must the texture of my life have been like then, that winning those sort of sums failed to leave even the slightest mark on my memory?’

Rooms That Have Had Their Part

Joanna Kavenna

‘Rooms jaundiced by bad lighting, so you wondered, what is ague, and could we have it? Rooms that hummed, a hum you couldn’t quite identify, or that seemed in the end to come from your own head.’

Rachel Seiffert on Naomi Alderman

Rachel Seiffert

‘So, to summarise: witty, bold, and delicate too. Oh yes, and supremely able to turn a story.’

Taiye Selasi | My Writing Playlist

Taiye Selasi

Taiye Selasi, one of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists, shares a playlist of songs to write to.

Zadie Smith on ‘Just Right’

Zadie Smith

‘There should be a special term for abandoned stories, and another for the strange limbo in which their occupants live.’

Leagues Away

Benjamin Markovits

‘A year passed before I could pick up a ball again with pleasure.’

Introduction: Best of Young British Novelists 4

John Freeman

‘We live in unreaderly times, but our belief is that these novelists will be exceptions to the general rule of irrelevance faced by writers today.’

Xiaolu Guo | My Writing Playlist

Xiaolu Guo

‘The challenge of flowing in one continuous outpouring of language in a novel is my killer.’

Tahmima Anam | My Writing Playlist

Tahmima Anam

Tahmima Anam shares a playlist of songs to write to.

Mrs de Pelet

Evie Wyld

‘I see her with her hands cupped in front of her shouting ‘The “O”, ladies, The Vaginal O’ as we read Shakespeare.’

Salman Rushdie on Sunjeev Sahota

Salman Rushdie

‘You open a book by a writer you’ve never heard of and a new voice leaps off the page and makes you listen.’

Forklift Truck Driver Wins Literary Prize!

Adam Foulds

‘There are two options for the young writer and employment. There is the proper job, whatever it might be – law, advertising, medicine or the default choice for many, academia. Or there’s the menial, rent-paying job.’