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← Back to all issuesGranta 168: Significant Other
Summer 2024
In Granta 168: Significant Other we consider the people who shape our sense of ourselves and reflect on the connections and encounters that inform a life.
Featuring essays and memoir by Mary Gaitskill, Susan Pedersen, James Pogue and Snigdha Poonam, as well as criticism from Christian Lorentzen.
Fiction by Kevin Brazil, J.M. Coetzee, Sophie Collins, Victor Heringer (translated by James Young), Fleur Jaeggy (translated by Gini Alhadeff) and Alexandra Tanner.
Poetry by Najwan Darwish (translated by Kareem James Abu-Zeid), Zoë Hitzig, Tamara Nassar and Bernadette Van-Huy.
And photography by Rosalind Fox Solomon (introduced by Lynne Tillman), Jesse Glazzard (introduced by Anthony Vahni Capildeo) and Debmalya Ray Choudhuri (introduced by John-Baptiste Oduor.
Cover artwork © Simon Casson
From this Issue
Essays & Memoir|Granta 168
Essays & Memoir|Granta 168
Introduction
Thomas Meaney
‘There can be any number of significant others in a life. Some we know for a long time; others are meteoric: we may see them only once.’
The editor introduces the issue.
Fiction|Granta 168![padlock](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%200%200'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Fiction|Granta 168![padlock](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%200%200'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
The Museum Guard
J.M. Coetzee
‘Do they strike people as a strange couple? He does not know, does not care.’
Fiction by J.M. Coetzee.
Fiction|Granta 168
Fiction|Granta 168
Private View
Sophie Collins
‘Being recognised as part of a couple thrilled me; I felt legitimised. John had a life, a full life.’
Fiction by Sophie Collins.
Poetry|Granta 168
Poetry|Granta 168
Two Poems
Zoë Hitzig
‘just like that, I’m just your state, state of play’
Poetry by Zoë Hitzig.
Fiction|Granta 168![padlock](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%200%200'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Fiction|Granta 168![padlock](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%200%200'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Embrace
Kevin Brazil
‘Love is a concept about which I have long been very sceptical. I have seen the damage that can be done, and can be justified, in the name of love.’
Fiction by Kevin Brazil.
Art & Photography|Granta 168![padlock](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%200%200'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Art & Photography|Granta 168![padlock](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%200%200'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
New Kindness Hatching
Jesse Glazzard & Anthony Vahni Capildeo
‘The invisible artist who invites us to stand beside him is clearly among friends; being kind, being of a kind; witnessing with-ness.’
Jesse Glazzard photographs Camp Trans, with an introduction by Anthony Vahni Capildeo.
Essays & Memoir|Granta 168
Essays & Memoir|Granta 168
The Messiah of Cadoxton
Susan Pedersen
‘The script of script production rather followed the script of sex: it was intimate, exciting, boundary-crossing, and left the participants changed.’
Susan Pedersen on paranormal love in the Balfour family.
Poetry|Granta 168
Poetry|Granta 168
Three Mukhatabat
Najwan Darwish
‘He said to me: / Love led me / to pity my own self, / to grieve it / with a vertical grief.’
Poetry by Najwan Darwish. Translated from the Arabic by Kareem James Abu-Zeid.
Art & Photography|Granta 168
Art & Photography|Granta 168
A Woman I Once Knew
Rosalind Fox Solomon & Lynne Tillman
‘These are not gentle, passive female bodies. They are strong women who strike poses that show aggression.’
Lynne Tillman introduces Rosalind Fox Solomon’s self-portraits.
Essays & Memoir|Granta 168
Essays & Memoir|Granta 168
A Journey to Ayodhya
Snigdha Poonam
‘Ask anyone in Ayodhya, and they will say the city’s Hindu–Muslim harmony can withstand any test.’
Snigdha Poonam on the construction of a Hindu temple on the ruins of a mosque in Utter Pradesh.
Fiction|Granta 168![padlock](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%200%200'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Fiction|Granta 168![padlock](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%200%200'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Bitter North
Alexandra Tanner
‘Eight years in, Hal felt like another her, somehow.’
Fiction by Alexandra Tanner.
Essays & Memoir|Granta 168![padlock](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%200%200'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Essays & Memoir|Granta 168![padlock](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%200%200'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Literature Without Literature
Christian Lorentzen
‘Corporate publishing is the channel through which literature happens to flow at this moment in history.’
Christian Lorentzen dissects the literary establishment.
Art & Photography|Granta 168![padlock](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%200%200'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Art & Photography|Granta 168![padlock](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%200%200'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
The Weight of the Earth
Debmalya Ray Choudhuri & John-Baptiste Oduor
‘The presence of another person at the scene is suggested. The image invites you to imagine their position and to mentally assume it.’
Photography by Debmalya Ray Choudhuri, introduced by John-Baptiste Oduor.
Essays & Memoir|Granta 168![padlock](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%200%200'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Essays & Memoir|Granta 168![padlock](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%200%200'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Gold Fever in the Coup Belt: The Mines of Mauritania
James Pogue
‘The whole arc of the failed promise of development became legible in the traces of the gold rush.’
James Pogue reports from the gold mines of Mauritania.
Essays & Memoir|Granta 168![padlock](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%200%200'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Essays & Memoir|Granta 168![padlock](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%200%200'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
The Pneuma Illusion
Mary Gaitskill
‘The intensity of it seemed in retrospect something inexplicable, like a sudden opening in the sky with an outpouring of visions.’
Mary Gaitskill on her experiences with Pneuma therapy.
Fiction|Granta 168![padlock](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%200%200'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Fiction|Granta 168![padlock](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%200%200'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Lígia
Victor Heringer
‘Today, three years after I befriended him to see him die, the idea of losing Sr Mendes has left me all mixed up.’
A short story by Victor Heringer, translated by James Young.
Poetry|Granta 168
Poetry|Granta 168
Moon
Bernadette Van-Huy
‘It hides in the wings during the day’
Poetry by Bernadette Van-Huy.
Poetry|Granta 168
Poetry|Granta 168
Lovers’ Quarrel
Tamara Nassar
‘Certainly we are not too old for that day / as dense as age on your bedroom floor.’
Poetry by Tamara Nassar.
Fiction|Granta 168![padlock](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%200%200'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Fiction|Granta 168![padlock](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%200%200'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Armance
Fleur Jaeggy
‘I don’t think much of the very silly, even gullible, person that I am.’
Fiction by Fleur Jaeggy, translated by Gini Alhadeff.
The Online Edition
Fiction|The Online Edition
Diane
Avigayl Sharp
‘I lied about my age and I lied about my location and I lied about being horny.’
Fiction by Avigayl Sharp.