‘How far can one deviate from the accepted pieties before one is kicked out?’
Brandon Taylor on naturalism and the future of fiction.
In this episode of the Granta Podcast, we speak to the novelist Brandon Taylor, author of Real Life (2020) and The Late Americans (2023), about naturalism, the future of fiction, and the connection between Émile Zola and The Sims.
We also discuss Taylor’s short story ‘Stalin, Lenin, Robespierre’, which appeared in Granta 166: Generations.
Subscribe to the podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
‘We meet at various points in the great swathes of the past that neither of us were alive to witness.’
Allen Bratton on a daytrip to a castle with his older boyfriend.
‘Listening to three white poets, whom I suspect are academics, talk about the state of poetry.’
Oluwaseun Olayiwola eavesdrops on an older generation.
‘I’d been dubious about his company at first.’
Sarah Moss on watching Shakespeare with her twelve-year-old son.
‘She didn’t trust us because, to her, tenants were like children.’
Kate Zambreno on negotiating with her older landlady.
‘A moment now swallowed in embarrassment, I asked a question only a young person might ask an older one.’
Lynne Tillman on trying to understand what makes a generation.
‘He tried to think about what sort of person he wanted to be in this world and how he might bring that about.’
Fiction by Brandon Taylor.
‘It’s perhaps hard to imagine a country with abundant mineral or oil reserves simply leaving that wealth underground. But there are precedents here, historical and contemporary.’
Granta interviews Thea Riofrancos.
‘Life is so difficult. It may take more than one creature to sustain one life.’
Sheila Heti in conversation with Phyllis Rose.
‘It occurs to me then that he has not invited me for dinner, but my alter ego from the page.’
Tabitha Lasley on writing and dating.
