In late 1980, Fay Weldon and Bill Buford, then editor of this magazine, discussed Granta...
In late 1980, Fay Weldon and Bill Buford, then editor of this magazine, discussed Granta 1, new American writing and gender politics. (Read a larger version of the letter here.)
The story about ‘women in a black hairdressers’ was written by J. K. Klaven and eventually appeared in Granta 3: ‘The End of the English Novel’.
Fay Weldon is the author of over twenty novels and five collections of short stories. She lives in London.
‘We meet at various points in the great swathes of the past that neither of us were alive to witness.’
Allen Bratton on a daytrip to a castle with his older boyfriend.
‘Listening to three white poets, whom I suspect are academics, talk about the state of poetry.’
Oluwaseun Olayiwola eavesdrops on an older generation.
‘I’d been dubious about his company at first.’
Sarah Moss on watching Shakespeare with her twelve-year-old son.
‘She didn’t trust us because, to her, tenants were like children.’
Kate Zambreno on negotiating with her older landlady.
‘A moment now swallowed in embarrassment, I asked a question only a young person might ask an older one.’
Lynne Tillman on trying to understand what makes a generation.
Bill Buford on his decision to resign as editor of this magazine, which he relaunched in its present form in 1979.
‘Travel writing of most kinds, not just the humorous, has the history of colonialism perched on its shoulder.’
‘I knew he was a ‘strange’ writer, unclassifiable, with a boundless imagination, who was creating one of the most intriguing, thought-provoking bodies of work in the Spanish language.’
Jeanette Winterson reads from her new memoir, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal, and her story ‘All I Know About Gertrude Stein’ from Granta 115: The F Word.
‘I left the office just in time to get to Penn Station, find my track and hop onto my train. We pulled out into an afternoon grey and heavy with rain.’
‘My role in the slaughter doesn’t disqualify the beauty I find in all / forms of sheltered flame.’
