Articles
Fiction | Issue 169
In Her Room
Wang Anyi
‘It would be wrong to say she hasn’t experienced life. Instead, it would be more apt to describe her as someone whom time has slipped by without leaving the slightest trace.’
Fiction by Wang Anyi, translated by Michael Berry.
Fiction | Issue 169
Working Girls
A. Jiang
‘I tried to work out how many elements I would have plugged if I retired at sixty, and soon I was fatigued before a simple subtraction.’
Fiction by A. Jiang.
Essays & Memoir | Issue 169
China Time
Thomas Meaney
‘At a time when China has become a unifying specter of menace for Western governments, this issue of Granta brings the country’s literary culture into focus.’
The editor introduces the issue.
Essays & Memoir | Issue 169
Picun
Han Zhang
‘The stories being written by Picun writers and their peers show the effort and the ingenuity required to survive as migrant workers, builders of the economic miracle.’
Han Zhang on the New Workers’ Literature Group of Picun.
Art & Photography
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Issue 169
Shot in the 1960s, Printed Yesterday
Haohui Liu
‘It is rare to see photos of Daqing from the 1960s that are not part of the official feting of the oil boom.’
Photography by Haoihui Liu, introduced by Granta.
Fiction
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Issue 169
Tomorrow I’ll Get Past It
Yu Hua
‘Every time I tried to write more, it turned out to be a fruitless endeavor – I felt like I was trapped in a sealed room with no windows.’
Fiction by Yu Hua, translated by Michael Berry.
Fiction | Issue 169
Goodbye, Bridge of the East
Wang Zhanhei
‘To make sure she was looking her best in the photos, Wu Jiayu avoided eating during our dates, and she didn’t order anything for me when we were done.’
A short story by Wang Zhanhei, translated by Dave Haysom.
In Conversation
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Issue 169
The Rules of the Game
Wu Qi
‘It seemed perfectly normal for middle-class writers to tell the stories of the underclass. But the presumed creator of literature has been changing.’
Granta interviews Wu Qi.
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.
Essays & Memoir | Issue 157
Introduction: On Staying at Home
William Atkins
‘If the following pieces can be said to have an overriding characteristic, it is that they take seriously the experience of being a stranger.’
Guest editor William Atkins introduces the issue.
Essays & Memoir | The Online Edition
Cooking from Memory
Barclay Bram
Barclay Bram reports from Chengdu – on the attention to detail in Sichuanese cooking.
Essays & Memoir
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Issue 149
On Being French and Chinese
Tash Aw
‘We were trapped in a sort of double prison: by poverty in Europe, and by China and its expectations of us.’
In Conversation | Issue 146
In Conversation
Pallavi Aiyar & Poppy Sebag-Montefiore
‘There’s a lot I’ve written to you that I’ve never said to anyone else before simply because of how much you and I share.’
Fiction
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Issue 141
Cloud Seeding
Krista Foss
‘It’s not a fairy tale or a mystery. It’s a transaction.’
Art & Photography
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Issue 138
Another Great Leap
Justin Jin & A Yi
‘A man will only return to his birthplace in the countryside when he is dead. This is our reality.’
Essays & Memoir
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Issue 138
Well Done, No. 3777!
Xiaolu Guo
‘I grew up in the semi-tropical south, dotted by wet paddy fields, but I always wanted to go to the north.’
Fiction | Issue 138
Do Not Say We Have Nothing
Madeleine Thien
‘In a single year, my father left us twice.’
Essays & Memoir
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Issue 124
Barrenland
A Yi
‘I no longer feared that she would entrap me; my heart would not soften.’
Essays & Memoir | Issue 124
1911, The Other Revolution
Isabel Hilton
‘Anniversaries, of course, can be a two-edged sword: they invite historical reappraisal.’
Essays & Memoir | Issue 124
Problems for Adam and Eve
Jo McMillan
‘It is 1997, and this is the Adam and Eve, the first legal sex shop to open in China – housed here, in a state-run healthcare facility.’
Essays & Memoir
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Issue 124
Unspeakable Rituals
Paul Theroux
‘Whenever people ask me about travel I always suspect they are buttonholing me, eager to relate amazing adventures of their own’.
Essays & Memoir
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Issue 101
Blitzed Beijing
Robert Macfarlane
‘It’s at night that you really notice the dust, because artificial light suddenly makes the fines visible.’
Essays & Memoir | Issue 101
An Open Letter to Mbeki
Petina Gappah
‘You are human, Mr Mbeki, and are therefore prey to the resentments and obstinacies that plague the mere mortal.’
Essays & Memoir
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Issue 90
Fantastic Mr Fox
Tim Adams
‘He told the police officer that he was a vegan and the next morning a little slit in the prison door opened, with his breakfast: a metal tray on which there were three frozen potatoes.’
Tim Adams on the fox hunting ban in Granta 90: Country Life.
Essays & Memoir
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Issue 90
Made in China
Isabel Hilton
‘Visiting a factory was one thing; working in one quite another.’
Essays & Memoir
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Issue 90
The Siege of Mazar-i-Sharif
Luke Harding
‘We didn't know it then, but this was the end of the Taliban—their final surrender after what had been (though, again, those of us who witnessed it had no way knowing this at the time) the most significant struggle of the short war in Afghanistan. Was this final struggle intended? Was the slaughter inevitable? Or was it, as many armed conflicts must be, a long series of mistakes born out of vengefulness, ignorance and fear?’
Essays & Memoir | Issue 73
The Lost City
Isabel Hilton
‘There is nobody to blame but the Communist Party. They had absolute control during the fifty years it took to destroy Beijing, and they had the chance to develop a modern, civilized city.’
Essays & Memoir | Issue 67
Leonardo’s Grave
Ian Jack
‘Tragedies needed heroes. Titanic’s band supplied them.’
