Photograph by CalHumanities
Rebecca Solnit discusses interweaving personal narratives with the lives of Mary Shelley and Che Guevara, paradoxes and Beyoncé.
Photograph by CalHumanities
‘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.
Rebecca Solnit is the author of more than twenty books, including Orwell's Roses, which was shortlisted for the 2022 Orwell Prize for Political Writing, Men Explain Things to Me, Wanderlust, The Faraway Nearby and Recollections of My Non-Existence, which was longlisted for the 2021 Orwell Prize for Political Writing and shortlisted for the James Tait Black Award. She is also the author of many essays on feminism, activism, social change, hope and the climate crisis. She lives in San Francisco and is a regular contributor to the Guardian and other publications.
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 →‘It was like trying to go back to before the earthquake, to before knowledge.’
‘How far can one deviate from the accepted pieties before one is kicked out?’
Brandon Taylor on naturalism and the future of fiction.
‘What happens to a dancer when they stop dancing?’
Diana Evans on dancing and writing.
‘I want the reader to be conscious of reading and not being just drawn into the book and forgetting themselves and forgetting their life.’
Claire-Louise Bennett on her novel Checkout 19.
‘Renaissance gives back, by reminding Black queer people what it’s like to be in our most sacred spaces.’
Okechukwu Nzelu on Beyoncé.
‘We live in these places out of necessity, lucky to have them out of the terrible explosion of humanity.’
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