Jenni Fagan speaks with Ellah Alfrey about the care system, her days in a band and how a library van nurtured her love of reading.
‘Feelings can be very obscure but numbers never lie.’
Kevin Brazil on metrics, obsession and fitness.
‘An intense workout is an ecstasy of punishment packaged as self-improvement.’
Mary Wellesley on exercise, ritual and Barry’s Bootcamp.
‘I was not good at sports because I would not do sports because I did not have the body for sports because I would not do sports.’
Saba Sams on girlhood, embodiment and avoiding sports.
‘Following United rarely brings me any great joy and most often it depresses me. If I could disengage, I would.’
Jonny Thakkar on Manchester United.
‘I deployed my body against an opponent like a blunt and effective instrument.’
John Patrick McHugh on playing Gaelic football.
Jenni Fagan is the author of six collections of poetry and four novels. Her most recent book is The Bone Library.‘Zephyrs’, in Granta 123, is an excerpt from her novel The Sunlight Pilgrims. Ootlin, her memoir about growing up in state care, will be published in August 2023.
More about the author →Ellah Alfrey talks with Joanna Kavenna about wanderlust, genre-hopping and Nietzsche.
Ellah Allfrey speaks with Naomi Alderman, one of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists.
Taiye Selasi talks about her mother’s garden, Rachmaninov and learning to speak Italian.
In the first partnership of its kind, Audible and Granta magazine are collaborating on the unabridged audiobook production of Granta 123: Best of Young British Novelists 4.
Binyavanga Wainaina talks to Ellah Allfrey about meeting the expectations of an African readership and what to do with a bad review.
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