Granta 10: Travel Writing

Granta: The Magazine of New Writing #10

by Granta

Granta is a leading literary magazine and publisher in the United Kingdom. Initially founded in 1889 by students at Cambridge University as The Granta, it was successfully relaunched as a magazine of "new writing" in 1979. Granta is a literary quarterly with a distinctive mix of fiction, personal history, reportage, and documentary photography.

Genres: Travel, Essays, 20th Century

Paperback

First published May 1, 1984

Reviews

[João · Rating 4 out of 5]

Depois da II Grande Guerra Mundial, quando todos pensavam definitivamente enterrada a era das grandes viagens e explorações pelo mundo, e com ela a literatura de viagens, a Granta e Bill Bufford, demonstraram que este género literário ainda não tinha morrido e tinha espaço para se reinventar. Já não se tratavam agora das grandes epopeias de aventura e descoberta, procurando civilizações perdidas (como em "A Estrada para Oxiana" de Robert Byron ou "Um Gentleman na Ásia" de Somerset Maugham) ou tentando alcançar zonas remotas e inóspitas, (como em "Farthest North" de Fridjtof Nansen, ou "The Worst Journey in the World" de Ashley Cherry-Garrard). As experiências dos novos escritores de viagens passaram a ser agora mais pessoais e limitadas. Afinal, o mundo já estava completamente descoberto! Para além de serem contadas na primeira pessoa, estas novas histórias de viagens partilham com os clássicos de outrora o poder de nos empolgar, de nos deixar cheios de vontade de deixar os sofás das nossas vidas monótona para partirmos à descoberta de novas maravilhas. Em vez de nos levarem a descobrir o Polo Sul ou a Transoxiana, estes novos escritores de viagens (Chatwin, Morris, O'Hanlon, Theroux, Thubron, Lewis...) colocam-nos em cenários modernos, por vezes dramáticos, como guerras e golpes de estado, mas outras vezes quase irrelevantes, como a rivalidade entre duas pequenas aldeias italianas, a estrada US281 que atravessa o Texas de norte a sul ou um campo de treinos militar. São por vezes histórias de descoberta do outro, mas muitas vezes também histórias de descoberta pessoal.

[T. Fowler · Rating 3 out of 5]

Full credit to editor Bill Buford for his effort in assembling a travel anthology of articles by well-known authors that reflect the change in travel writing post-1945. Some articles deserve 4 or 5 stars but others less. The best may be Colin Thubron's about his "Night in Vietnam" where he wandered about Saigon alone in the night with no plan, knew no one; but then there is Bruce Chatman's "A Coup" where he was lucky to get out of Benin alive; or Martha Gelhorn's "White into Black' about surviving as the only white person in a small town in Haiti with no easy means of exiting.

[Allen Allen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, my second Granta experience was also successful.

I don't really know what I was expecting when I ordered a back issue of a literary journal from the 80s focusing on travel writing. James Fenton and Redmond O'Hanlon's stories were great. I only realized afterwards that the James in Redmond's stories was Fenton. The way Fenton wrote, and how Redmond portrayed him were quite different.

All of the stories were great really. Colin Thubron being lost in Vietnam in the middle of the night. Martha Gellhorn's experience of Black's being racist towards whites. Bruce Chatwin's first hand account of an African coup was considerable riveting. Saul Bellow's look at why we travel to certain places stuck a chord with me personally with the future travels I have planned. Jan Morris' Interstate 281 made Texas seem interesting. Paul Theroux's Subterranean Gothic made for a chilling image of the NY subway.

All in all, a good read, and a nice glimpse into the past of travel.