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 alone know a running stream
that is recovery partly and dim sweat
of a day-fever’
A poem by Rowan Evans.
‘Humour is a thread we hang onto. It punctures through the fog of guilt.’
Momtaza Mehri in conversation with Warsan Shire.
‘Something shifted in me that night. A small voice in my head said, maybe you can make a way for yourself as a poet here, too.’
Mary Jean Chan in conversation with Andrew McMillan.
‘There was to be an exhibition. There were lots of pictures like his, apparently – of waiters, pastry cooks, valets, bellboys.’
An essay by Jason Allen-Paisant from Granta 159: What Do You See?
‘I have started to see that nothing is itself’
A poem by Jason Allen-Paisant from Granta 154: I’ve Been Away for a While.
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.’
‘By the dog the minced oaths, / the god-wounds, the solemnly / declared chronical maladies.’
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