Photograph by thehayfestival
Nadifa Mohamed speaks with Ted Hodgkinson about her first novel, Black Mamba Boy.
Photograph by thehayfestival
‘The flirtations of insects and plants are furtive, hidden and often so brief that if you literally blink you might miss what exactly is going on.’
Dino J. Martins on moths and orchids, from Granta 153: Second Nature.
‘The origin of the dysfunctional family: spores. / Friend or foe? True fern or ally?’
Poems by Sylvia Legris, author of Garden Physic.
‘And the trees were safely tucked in. Their roots were rallying in the soil, in this coil. Would the woman also take a turn for the better in her last decade?’
Three stories by Diane Williams.
‘walking alone down a country road – / distracted by the slightly annoying and toxic / first green of spring, eyes overflowing’
A poem by Emily Skillings.
‘Whatever the aftermath, you won’t see the city again except through the agency of absence, recalling this semi-emptiness, this viral uncertainty.’
From 2020: China Miéville on the UK government’s response to coronavirus.
Nadifa Mohamed was born in Somalia and moved to Britain in 1986. Her first novel, Black Mamba Boy, published in 2010, was longlisted for the Orange Prize; shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award, the Dylan Thomas Award, the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and the PEN/Open Book Award; and won the Betty Trask Award. Her most recent novel is The Orchard of Lost Souls. She is one of Granta’s 2013 Best of Young British Novelists.
More about the author →Ted Hodgkinson is the previous online editor at Granta. He was a judge for the 2012 Costa Book Awards’ poetry prize, announced earlier this year. He managed the Santa Maddalena Foundation in Tuscany, the affiliated Gregor Von Rezzori Literary Prize and still serves as an advisor. His stories have appeared in Notes from the Underground and The Mays and his criticism in the Times Literary Supplement. He has an MA in English from Oxford and an MFA from Columbia.
More about the author →‘It was in one of those listless summers after graduation that I found myself in the small Japanese town of Sasayama.’
A short film featuring Nadifa Mohamed, one of Granta's Best Young British Novelists.
‘Silence takes the place of all these words and her loneliness remains as dense and close as a shadow.’
‘I became English by osmosis; a new sense of humour, altered manners, an alternative history filtering through my old skin.’
The authors of Flèche and physical discuss the state of queer poetry in Britain, how to make poetry alive and what an anthology can mean.
‘we watched the last / very colorful weapons / coming ashore’
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