Issues
← Back to all issuesGranta 161: Sister, Brother
Autumn 2022
Psychoanalysis famously privileges the vertical relationship between a child (the patient) and their parents over the seemingly equal and unproblematic horizontal connections between siblings. This issue of Granta tells a different story – one of chaotic hierarchies, zero-sum games of competition alternating with tenderness, lifelong relationships that nevertheless can sometimes break.
From this Issue
|Granta 161
O Brother
John Niven
‘Up on the light box on the wall are the scans of Gary’s brain, bone white standing out against smoked grey.’
John Niven remembers the last days of his brother, Gary.
|Granta 161
The Durhams
Ben Pester
‘We have this space and we have permission to summon each other into it. Sibspace.’
Fiction by Ben Pester.
|Granta 161
Plastic Mothers
Lauren John Joseph
‘In essence she acted as though I were the kid her mother had left her to raise.’
Lauren John Joseph on the blurred contours of motherhood.
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Brother
Vanessa Onwuemezi
‘Brother, to be your sister is to confront the possibility of having been other than I am.’
Vanessa Onwuemezi on the meaning of sisterhood.
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Wales 2013–2022
Sebastián Bruno & Sophie Mackintosh
‘Sebastián Bruno’s careful documentation of the communities of South Wales, is made up of images stark in their beauty.’
Sophie Mackintosh introduces photography by Sebastián Bruno.
|Granta 161
Siblings
Karolina Ramqvist
‘I asked her why she hadn’t told me I had a sister before, and she said she’d thought it was for my father to tell, since she was his child.’
Karolina Ramqvist on finding her estranged siblings, translated from the Swedish by Saskia Vogel.
|Granta 161
A Little Closer
Angelique Stevens
‘We were twelve and thirteen and smoking cigarettes in our basement with friends – Mom and Dad at work, Hall & Oates on forty-five.’
Angelique Stevens recalls the year her sister went missing.
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The Making of the Babies
Lee Lai
‘I can’t believe it’s been two years since we’ve been able to get together and we’re still just arguing about which of us incurs more shit from the aunties.’
A graphic short story by Lee Lai.
|Granta 161
Rain
Colin Barrett
‘As Scully and Charlie Vaughan passed under the trees in the town square, the afternoon seemed to switch on and off around them.’
Fiction by Colin Barrett.
|Granta 161
The Tiddler
Charlie Gilmour
‘It was a competition, though I hadn’t realised that yet.’
Charlie Gilmour on bullying.
|Granta 161
Looking at My Brother
Julian Slagman & Alice Hattrick
‘Slagman’s photographs counteract the medical narrative as well as the medical gaze.’
Alice Hattrick introduces photography by Julian Slagman.
|Granta 161
These Stolen Twins
Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow
‘In our household there was no distinction of feeling between those who were biologically related and those who were simply instructed to regard each other as such.’
Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow on growing up with foster siblings.
|Granta 161
Captions
Andrew Miller
‘I note that my brother – he’ll deny it but he was always the moody one – has apparently refused to take Granny’s hand.’
Andrew Miller reflects on three family photographs.
|Granta 161
The Erl-King
Emma Cline
‘He was our younger sister’s baby – her and her husband’s baby, I guess. They were young parents and excessively chill.’
Memoir by Emma Cline.
