Jen George shares her process of translating visual art into text
Granta Magazine’s Josie Mitchell speaks to Jen George about being one of Granta’s 2017 Best of Young American Novelists.
They discuss the alienation produced by capitalism, translating visual art into text, and why everyone should have a combative relationship with contemporary American lit.
‘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.
‘Small praise was like a drug for party members, though we used real drugs too, hard ones, drugs that imbued one with the facility for ruthless violence and multiple orgasms.’
‘They say it takes a village to raise a child and the same can be true of killing.’
Amber Husain on meat.
‘He came to see, after a long agony, that it would be best to give it up.’
A new story by Lucy Ives.
‘I often see myself thrusting into soft clouds, hallucinating.’
Two poems from Chia-Lun Chang’s debut poetry collection Prescribee.
‘What does it say about capitalism that we have money and want to spend it but we can’t find anything worth buying?’
Eula Biss on her book Having and Being Had.
‘After almost three years of economic recession and youth unemployment estimated at around twenty per cent, it is fair to say that Italian attitudes towards work have become more serious.’
