Image: detail from illustration by Tomer Hanuka in Granta 122: Betrayal
André Aciman reads from the work and speaks to Granta’s Yuka Igarashi about the story, the problem with unreliable narrators and modern poetry, and why self-deception and betrayal are good subjects for fiction.
Image: detail from illustration by Tomer Hanuka in Granta 122: Betrayal
‘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.
André Aciman is Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature at the Graduate Center, CUNY. He is the author of the memoir Out of Egypt and four novels: Call Me by Your Name, Eight White Nights, Harvard Square and Enigma Variations. He is currently working on a novel tentatively titled Youth and a collection of essays, Homo Irrealis.
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 →‘I think of betrayal as a crack in the veneer of humanity, an act that reveals to us, and others, our base animal nature.’
‘Your problem is not that you misread signs; it’s that you see them everywhere.’
‘Once the Frosties had been eaten, she had no choice but to run.’
Fiction by Ben Hinshaw.
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