‘After all, it was only politics, and I was too young to understand.’
On the night Gough Whitlam was elected prime minister of Australia in December 1972, my parents held a party at our home in Sydney. It was summer and my mother wore a long Indian kaftan; my father wore a seersucker shirt and casual slacks. My brothers and I were meant to be in bed and watched from u…
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‘I think there should be a National Service of Hospitality. The best way to see the true face of humanity is to serve it a plate of chips.’
Camilla Grudova on bad-mannered customers.
‘Anyone who has ever worked night shifts will understand the vertiginous feeling that comes with staring down the day from the wrong end.’
A.K. Blakemore on working nights.
‘I was constantly reading job ads, trying to find my holy grail – a job I could stand to do, and someone foolish enough to hire me.’
Sandra Newman on learning how to play professional blackjack.
‘I loved being a receptionist. What I loved about it was playing the part of being a receptionist.’
Emily Berry on being a temporary office worker.
‘Every part of you would swell, including your eyeballs, and no matter how much water you drank, you were always dehydrated.’
Junot Díaz on working for a steel mill.
‘It is rare to see photos of Daqing from the 1960s that are not part of the official feting of the oil boom.’
Photography by Haoihui Liu, introduced by Granta.
‘I think people who ape the sentiments of others often go on to believe the thing they said. It becomes their opinion.’
Juliet Jacques and Iphgenia Baal discuss early digital cultures, precarity and social architecture.
‘How do we perform our politics, our outrage and our grievances when we are among a group?’
Anthony Anaxagorou talks about his collection Heritage Aesthetics.
‘I was in Sarandë as part of a journey across the entire length of the old Iron Curtain, from Norway to Azerbaijan.’
Timothy Phillips on the legacy of the Iron Curtain in Albania.
‘It was a commonplace / to enter the woods / with meat, lay it on the ground, then / wait for what might come.’
Poetry by Michael Bazzett.
