She can see her breath in the room of her future.
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‘Her heart is kept in a room with a very expensive security system.’
She can see her breath in the room of her future.
Sign in to Granta.com.
‘I think there should be a National Service of Hospitality. The best way to see the true face of humanity is to serve it a plate of chips.’
Camilla Grudova on bad-mannered customers.
‘Anyone who has ever worked night shifts will understand the vertiginous feeling that comes with staring down the day from the wrong end.’
A.K. Blakemore on working nights.
‘I was constantly reading job ads, trying to find my holy grail – a job I could stand to do, and someone foolish enough to hire me.’
Sandra Newman on learning how to play professional blackjack.
‘I loved being a receptionist. What I loved about it was playing the part of being a receptionist.’
Emily Berry on being a temporary office worker.
‘Every part of you would swell, including your eyeballs, and no matter how much water you drank, you were always dehydrated.’
Junot Díaz on working for a steel mill.
Jonathan Safran Foer is the author of the novels Everthing is Illuminate, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close and the non-fiction book Eating Animals. His fiction has won numerous awards, include the Guardian First Book Award, the National Jewish Book Award, the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing and the Victoria & Albert Museum Illustration Award. In an online poll, Everything is Illuminated was recently voted ‘Best Work of Jewish Fiction for a Decade’. His most recent book, Tree of Codes was published in 2010. Born in Washington, DC, Foer now lives in Brooklyn.
More about the author →‘This is the sort of book I wanted to read, wanted to have, regretted not having.’
‘When and where does the crisis of war begin and end?’
Y-Dang Troeung on the longevity of war.
‘Words only point to experience, they can’t replace it.’
Vanessa Onwuemezi and Colin Herd discuss UFOs, relation, and the search for an inner sense of home.
‘Always I tell myself: yes, you transmit but do they, the readers, receive?’
Colin Grant on distilling truth in memoir.
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