There were five of them remaining and it was all in the balance. But one was only three years old; just a kid. Eli didn’t think he really counted. I mean when did an entity, a human being—


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There were five of them remaining and it was all in the balance. But one was only three years old; just a kid. Eli didn’t think he really counted. I mean when did an entity, a human being—
Sign in to Granta.com.
‘I didn’t think she was happy; I thought she was in love, but I didn’t know what that told me, if it told me anything.’
Fiction by Jennifer Atkins.
‘She has been ten for a month and she does not like it. She carries the weight of her extra digit like a chain-mail vest.’
Fiction by Sara Baume.
‘I could hear the sea, and I could hear my own name.’
Fiction by Eliza Clark.
‘There was to be an exhibition. There were lots of pictures like his, apparently – of waiters, pastry cooks, valets, bellboys.’
A story by Tom Crewe.
‘I don’t remember his face, nor him as a whole.’
Derek Owusu on fathers and family.
Nicola Barker was born in 1966 in Ely, Cambridgeshire, and emigrated aged nine – with her sister and parents – to South Africa. She returned to England in 1981 with her mother. Her works include Wide Open, Darkmans, which was shortlisted for the 2007 Man Booker Prize, The Yips, The Cauliflower and H(A)PPY.
More about the author →‘Yes. Oh yes. That is who we once were. The Young must never, ever allow themselves to ignore what has brought them here.’
‘I’ve always thought of myself as someone who writes outside of the dominant culture; an outsider looking in.’
‘At the entrance to the gynaecology clinic, I ring the bell.’
Fiction by Agnes Chew.
‘If Wales win tonight, everything will turn out okay.’
Thomas Morris on football, family and financial precarity.
‘And this was my grandmother, this man-destroying tyrant, this magnificent perfectionist with untireable arms and unfathomable ways of seeing.’
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