‘It was hard for me to understand how someone could live alone.’
Once, I got lost. I was six or seven. I got distracted, and all of a sudden I couldn’t see my parents any more. I was scared, but I immediately found the way home and got there before they did. They kept looking for me, desperate, but that afternoon I thought they were lost. I believed I knew how …
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.
‘At every protest, when it was time to yell at the cops, I remembered my father and felt a turbulent emotion.’
Memoir by Alejandro Zambra on his father and his son.
‘Which of the following famous phrases best reflects the meaning of the text?’
‘Something’s gone awry with this article. My intention was to remember, in his birthplace, a writer I admire, and it’s clear that my admiration has waned.’
‘It’s hard to introduce Daniel Galera’s tale without resorting to adjectives that are more likely to arouse distrust than interest.’
‘Fus was twenty-five, he wasn’t a kid. What was he doing hanging out with fascists?’
An excerpt from What You Need From the Night. Translated from the French by Shaun Whiteside.
‘The aim is to coax the writer out of the isolation which keeps one end of the publishing industry comfortably in the nineteenth century.’
