The Man Booker prize-winning author's selection of the best Irish short stories of the last sixty years, following Richard Ford's bestselling Granta Book of the American Short Story.
Presenting a diverse and dazzling collection from all over the continent, from Morocco to Zimbabwe, Uganda to Kenya. Helon Habila focuses on younger, newer writers - contrasted with some of their older, more established peers - to give a fascinating picture of a new and more liberated Africa. These writers are characterized by their engagement with the wider world and the opportunities offered by the end of apartheid, the end of civil wars and dictatorships, and the possibilities of free movement. Their work is inspired by travel and exile. They are liberated, global and expansive. As Dambudzo Marechera wrote: 'If you're a writer for a specific nation or specific race, then f*** you." These are the stories of a new Africa, punchy, self-confident and defiant. Includes stories by: Fatou Diome; Aminatta Forna; Manuel Rui; Patrice Nganang; Leila Aboulela; Zo Wicomb; Alaa Al Aswany; Doreen Baingana; E.C. Osondu.
A collection of travel writing by some of the genre’s finest authors, from Paul Theroux to Sara Wheeler, voyaging from Mississippi to Malawi and Thailand. The New Granta Book of Travel Writing represents a sea change in writers’ approaches to the craft. The 1980s were the culmination of a golden age, when writers including Bruce Chatwin, James Hamilton-Paterson and James Fenton set out to document life in largely unfamiliar territory, bringing back tales of the beautiful, the extraordinary and the unexpected. By the mid 1990s, travel writing seemed to change, as a younger generation of writers appeared in the magazine, making journeys for more complex and often personal reasons. Decca Aitkenhead reported on sex tourism in Thailand, and Wendell Steavenson moved to Iraq as a foreign correspondent. What all these pieces have in common is a sense of engagement with the places they describe, and a belief that whether we are in Birmingham or Belarus, there is always something new to be discovered.
Since its relaunch in 1979, Granta magazine has championed the art and craft of reportage - journalism marked by vivid description, a novelist's eye to form and eyewitness reporting that reveals hidden truths about people and events that have shaped the world we know. This new edition of The Granta Book of Reportage collects a dozen of the finest and most lasting pieces Granta has published. Featuring distinguished writers and reporters - John Simpson, James Fenton, Martha Gellhorn, Germaine Greer, Ryszard Kapuscinski, John le Carre, as well as new talents Elana Lappin, Suketu Mehta and Wendell Steavenson - the book covers some of the signal events of our time: the fall of Saigon, the end of apartheid in South Africa, the massacre in Tiananmen Square and the aftermath of the American invasion of Iraq.
This collection of journalism includes: John le Carre with the spy of the century in Switzerland; Ian Jack investigating the deaths on the Rock; John Simpson saving a soldier's life in Tiananmen Square; Martha Gellhorn in Panama City after the US invasion; Richard Rayner with the looters in Hollywood; and James Fenton hitching a ride on a tank in Saigon.
The Granta Book of India brings together, for the first time, evocative, personal and informative pieces from previous editions of Granta magazine on the experiences of Indian life, culture and politics, including extracts from the highly successful Granta 57: India! The Golden Jubilee. Included are: Suketu Mehta on Mumbai; Chitra Banerji's 'What Bengali Widows Cannot Eat'; Mark Tully on his childhood in Calcutta; Ian Jack's 'Unsteady People' - on unexpected parallels between Bihar and Britain; Urvashi Butalia on tracing her long-lost uncle; a poem by Salman Rushdie about the fatwa; Ramachandra Guha's 'What We Think of America'; Nirad Chaudhuri writing on his 100th birthday; Rory Stewart among the dervishes of Pakistan; Pankaj Mishra on the making of jihadis in Pakistan; as well as fiction by R. K. Narayan, Amit Chaudhuri and Nell Freudenberger.
The Horror issue features original cover artwork by Jake and Dinos Chapman and a line-up of contributors that includes some of the greatest names in contemporary fiction. Stephen King tells the story of a retired judge with a deadly secret. Don DeLillo imagines a moviegoer-turned-stalker and Paul Auster writes of his mother's death. Rajesh Parameswaran dips into the mind of a tiger who escapes from a zoo and terrorizes a neighbourhood. Will Self writes of his blood disease and Daniel Alarcon explores the phenomenon of staged, high-camp blood baths. Mark Doty ruminates on a close encounter between Walt Whitman and Bram Stoker. CONTRIBUTORS: Daniel Alarcon, Paul Auster, Tom Bamforth, Roberto Bolano, Don DeLillo, Mark Doty, Sarah Hall, Stephen King, Kanitta Meechubot (artist), Julie Ostuka, D.A. Powell (poem), Rajesh Parameswaran, Santiago Roncagliolo, Will Self, Joy Williams.
FROM HAN KANG, WINNER OF THE 2024 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE “[Han Kang writes in] intense poetic prose that . . . exposes the fragility of human life.”—from the Nobel Prize citation SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE • A “formally daring, emotionally devastating, and deeply political” (The New York Times Book Review) exploration of personal grief through the prism of the color white, from the internationally bestselling author of The Vegetarian “Stunningly beautiful writing . . . delicate and gorgeous . . . one of the smartest reflections on what it means to remember those we’ve lost.”—NPR While on a writer’s residency, a nameless narrator focuses on the color white to creatively channel her inner pain. Through lyrical, interconnected stories, she grapples with the tragedy that has haunted her family, attempting to make sense of her older sister’s death using the color white. From trying to imagine her mother’s first time producing breast milk to watching the snow fall and meditating on the impermanence of life, she weaves a poignant, heartfelt story of the omnipresence of grief and the ways we perceive the world around us. In captivating, starkly beautiful language, The White Book offers a multilayered exploration of color and its absence, of the tenacity and fragility of the human spirit, and of our attempts to graft new life from the ashes of destruction.
From Antarctica and the deserts of the US-Mexico border, to a Siberian whale-killing station and the alleyways of Taipei, these dispatches describe a world in perpetual motion (even when it is 'locked-down'). To travel, we are reminded, is to embrace the experience of being a stranger - to acknowledge that one person''s frontier is another's home. Granta 157 is guest-edited by award-winning travel writer William Atkins. It features: Jason Allen-Paisant remembers the trees of his childhood Jamaica from his home in Leeds Carlos Manuel lvarez navigates Cuba's customs system, translated by Frank Wynne Eliane Brum travels from her home in the Brazilian Amazon to Antarctica in the era of climate crisis, translated by Diane Grosklaus Whitty Francisco Cant and Javier Zamora: a former border guard travels to the US-Mexico border with a former undocumented migrant who crossed the border as a child Jennifer Croft's richly illustrated essay on postcards and graffiti, inspired by Los Angeles Bathsheba Demuth visits a whale-hunting station on the Bering Strait, Russia Sinad Gleeson visits Brazil with Clarice Lispector Kate Harris with the Tlingit people of the Taku River basin, on the border of British Columbia and Alaska Artist Roni Horn on Iceland Emmanuel Iduma returns to Lagos in his late father's footsteps, Nigeria Kapka Kassabova among the gatherers of the ancient Mesta River, Bulgaria Taran Khan with Afghan migrants in Germany and Kabul Jessica J. Lee in the alleyways of Taipei, Taiwan, in search of her mother's home Ben Mauk among the volcanoes of Duterte's Philippines Pascale Petit tracks tigers in Paris and India Photographer James Tylor on the legacy of whaling in Indigenous South Australia, introduced by Dominic Guerrera