Photograph by Charlie Hopkinson
Rachel Seiffert reads her work and talks to Granta about writing silences, the inescapability of history, the Troubles and learning to love her characters.
Photograph by Charlie Hopkinson
‘She must have loved gold seeing that everything in the penthouse was gold. We didn’t sit. Fear didn’t let us see where to sit.’ A story by Adachioma Ezeano.
‘I had also, a week earlier, been fired for trying to sleep with my boss’s husband. I got the idea from a book, or maybe every book.’ A story by Emily Adrian.
‘The Mitsubishi conglomerate controls a forty per cent share of the world market in bluefin tuna; they are freezing and hoarding huge stocks of the fish every year.’ Katherine Rundell on extinction speculation.
‘Two roof tiles are missing to the rear: the kiss of death. Without repair, ruination is now inevitable. Until then, this is my best hope of shelter.’ Cal Flyn visits the island of Swona in northern Scotland.
‘I’m on the cliff of myself & these aren’t wings, they’re futures. / For as long as I can remember my body was a small town nightmare.’ A poem by Ocean Vuong.
Born in Oxford in 1971, Rachel Seiffert divides her time between teaching and writing. She is the author of several novels, including Afterwards and The Dark Room, shortlisted for the 2001 Man Booker Prize. She was one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists in 2003.
More about the author →Yuka Igarashi is the former managing editor at Granta and was issue editor of Granta 127: Japan. She has taught fiction writing at various universities including Columbia and Parsons The New School for Design in New York.
More about the author →‘So, to summarise: witty, bold, and delicate too. Oh yes, and supremely able to turn a story.’
‘Dark red hair. Wee skirt and trainers, bare arms. All those freckles.’
‘A story that starts with a bereavement: already I’m drawn in.’
‘The bushes grow dense across the top of the drop, but Martin can just see through the leaves: young mother and son, swimming in the pool hollowed out by the waterfall.’
‘Everyone says you were beautiful when you were young.’
Kate Zambreno on Marguerite Duras.
‘If he fell in I would jump straight after, I would plumb through water not cold so much as oily, and dark as a dirty wine bottle.’
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