New Writing on Granta.com
Essays & Memoir|Issue 170
Mucker Play
Nico Walker
‘When you said so loudly that you were the best, that you were worth the top dollar, then not just every game but every play became important.’
Nico Walker on the rise and fall of American football, from Jim Thorpe to Deion Sanders.
Essays & Memoir|Issue 170
Real Tennis
Clare Bucknell
‘Real tennis players like to say that theirs is the only proper racket sport because the rest aren’t difficult enough.’
Clare Bucknell on a historical form of tennis.
Fiction|Issue 170
Troubadour
Edward Salem
‘There were always too many white activists and upper-class European NGO workers, foreign queers and queer adjacents who were there for the anecdote, hoping to bed a native before their visa ended.’
Fiction by Edward Salem.
Fiction|Issue 170
The First Person
Kathryn Scanlan
‘I picked up a dry leaf, and when the caterpillar climbed aboard, I carried the leaf to the safety of the grass and set it down at the base of a tree.’
Fiction by Kathryn Scanlan.
Art & Photography|Issue 170
Events Ashore
An-My Lê
‘Designed to face down conventional enemies, it hasn’t won a war since 1991.’
An-My Lê photographs the United States military, introduced by Granta.
Granta 170: Winners
A Good Day
Caryl Churchill
‘I suddenly had one of those I can’t find words for it one of those moments of joy I suppose it is.’
Fiction by Caryl Churchill.
The Hurt Business
Declan Ryan
‘Honour, or anything approaching it, sits vanishingly low on the priority list.’
Declan Ryan on boxing and the fight between Anthony Joshua and Daniel Dubois.
The Dance
Mircea Cărtărescu
‘In the center of the palace was the Exit, blocked by a ferocious guardian, whom none could pass.’
Fiction by Mircea Cărtărescu, translated by Sean Cotter.
Bombed in Beirut
Myriam Boulos
‘What to do as a photographer in a war where even simple family portraits have become trophies?’
Myriam Boulos photographs displaced workers in Beirut.
The Vegetarian
Han Kang, translated by Deborah Smith
Winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature
Yeong-hye and her husband are ordinary people. He is an office worker with moderate ambitions and mild manners; she is an uninspired but dutiful wife. The acceptable flatline of their marriage is interrupted when Yeong-hye, seeking a more ‘plant-like’ existence, decides to become a vegetarian, prompted by grotesque recurring nightmares. In South Korea, where vegetarianism is almost unheard-of and societal mores are strictly obeyed, Yeong-hye’s decision is a shocking act of subversion. Her passive rebellion manifests in ever more bizarre and frightening forms, leading her bland husband to self-justified acts of sexual sadism.
Fraught, disturbing and beautiful, The Vegetarian is a novel about modern day South Korea, but also a novel about shame, desire and our faltering attempts to understand others, from one imprisoned body to another.
£8.99
From the Archive
Call If You Need Me
Raymond Carver
‘She watched me as I wrote out a cheque for the three months’ rent. Later, back at the motel, in bed, she lay with her hand on her forehead and said, “I envy your wife.”’
Fiction by Raymond Carver.
Knives
Louise Erdrich
‘It is time, now, for Karl to break down with his confession that I am a slow-burning fuse in his loins. A hair trigger. I am a name he cannot silence. A dream that never burst.’
Fiction by Louise Erdrich.
A Clean Marriage
Sayaka Murata
‘Frequency of sex since marriage: zero.’
Sayaka Murata on a sexless marriage and the ‘Clean Breeder’ technique for pleasureless reproduction.
Highlights From Granta Books
Recommended Reading
The Museum Guard
J.M. Coetzee
‘Do they strike people as a strange couple? He does not know, does not care.’
Fiction by J.M. Coetzee.
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.
Have a Good Trip with Trabant
Martin Roemers & Durs Grünbein
‘Question: ‘What do a Trabant and a condom have in common?’ Answer: ‘Both decrease the pleasure of the ride.’’
Durs Grünbein introduces photography by Martin Roemers.
Lifetimes of the Soviet Union
Yuri Slezkine
‘Bolshevism, like most millenarian movements, proved a one-generation phenomenon.’
Yuri Slezkine on Soviet history and the generational arc of revolution.
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.
