New Writing on Granta.com
Essays & Memoir|Issue 167
Power Metals
Nicolas Niarchos
‘The city, which is home to more than 300,000 people, is collapsing into the millions of shallow, square holes that have been cut into the ground.’
Nicolas Niarchos on mineral extraction in Manono, the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Fiction|The Online Edition
The Material
Camille Bordas
‘Rehearsing in front of the mirror was for actors, according to them, not comedians. It was for vain people. A good comedian was the opposite of vain, they said.’
Fiction by Camille Bordas.
Podcasts|Issue 166
Podcast | Andrew O’Hagan
Andrew O’Hagan
‘The world comes down on your head if you don’t tell people what they already believe to be true.’
Andrew O’Hagan on truth, journalism and fiction.
Essays & Memoir|Issue 167
Sinking Town
Amitava Kumar
‘The reality of state capitalism is that it spreads devastation and calls it development.’
Amitava Kumar visits a sinking Himalayan town.
Fiction|Issue 167
Feminisms
Nikki Shaner-Bradford
‘We figured some facts might quell the speculation. It was our duty as friends to put her mind at ease.’
Fiction by Nikki Shaner-Bradford.
Granta 167: Extraction
Where the Language Changes
Bathsheba Demuth
‘I am on the hunt for the Russian Empire, or what traces might still exist of its colonial enterprise.’
Bathsheba Demuth travels the Yukon river, following the history of the fur trade and the Nulato massacre.
On Boredom
Nuar Alsadir
‘Boredom is a complicated stink of an emotion, one that is far more layered than we presume.’
Nuar Alsadir on boredom.
Prairie Dogs
Benjamin Kunkel
‘After making sure our guests all had the drinks and/or drugs they required, I put on a Sun Ra record.’
A short story by Benjamin Kunkel.
Drone Wars for Mexico’s Gold Mountains
Anjan Sundaram
‘More than 111,000 people have gone missing in Mexico in the past six years.’
Anjan Sundaram on cartels, conflict and the rate of disappearances in Mexico.
Constructing a Nervous System
Margo Jefferson
Winner of the Rathbones Folio Prize Book of the Year
In this intimate and innovative memoir, Pulitzer prize-winning author Margo Jefferson gives us her own personal and intellectual formation.
From Josephine Baker’s radiant transformations, to Willa Cather’s aesthetics of whiteness, Jefferson shows us how we can find space in cultures that will not make room for us, and how, even in times of stricture, we might learn to construct ourselves.
From the Archive
A Small Bengal, NW3
Amit Chaudhuri
‘Those who stayed on had their reasons. . . and none of those reasons, it is safe to suppose, had anything to do with an overwhelming attachment to England.’
An essay by Amit Chaudhuri.
Means of Transport
John Berger
‘Use these photos as means of transport. Ride on them. No passes needed. Go close. Imprudently close. They leave every minute.’
John Berger on images of violent dispossession from South Africa and Lesotho.
Sugar Daddy
Angela Carter
‘However unconsciously, as if that were an excuse, he’d prepared a potentially lethal bed for this daughter’s lover.’
Angela Carter about her father.
Highlights From Granta Books
Recommended Reading
From Zanzibar to Marbach
Abdulrazak Gurnah
‘The tragedies inflicted on the people of East Africa as a result of European rivalries are belittled and forgotten.’
Abdulrazak Gurnah on German East Africa.
Last Week at Marienbad
Lauren Oyler
‘The only thing on the schedule was spa.’
Lauren Oyler on her trip to Marienbad.
Ecstatic Joy and Its Variants
Peter Gizzi
‘surely this is about water jetting from a spring, / a languid rafting with no particular destination’
Poetry by Peter Gizzi.
Missing Out
Leila Aboulela
‘She had held the day up with pegs; not only her day but his too.’
Fiction by Leila Aboulela.
News, Prizes and Events
When I Sing, Mountains Dance and Chilean Poet Shortlisted for Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize
When I Sing, Mountains Dance by Irene Sola (trans. Mara Faye Lethem) and Chilean Poet by Alejandro Zambra (trans. Megan McDowell) are both shortlisted for the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize.
Our Share of Night Shortlisted for The Kitschies
Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez (trans. Megan McDowell) is shortlisted for The Kitschies Red Tentacle award, awarded to speculative, sci-fi and fantasy novels.
I’m A Fan Wins a British Book Award
I'm A Fan by Sheena Patel wins the Book of the Year: Discover Award at the British Book Awards.
