Shorts: New Writing from Granta Books

by Granta: The Magazine of New Writing

A collection of short stories from contemporary writers, including: Richard Ford; Louis de Bernieres; Hanif Kureishi; Matthew Sweeney; and Alice Kavounias.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

304 pages, Paperback

First published September 10, 1998

About the author

Granta magazine was founded in 1889 by students at Cambridge University as The Granta, a periodical of student politics, student badinage and student literary enterprise, named after the river that runs through the town. In this original incarnation it had a long and distinguished history, publishing the early work of many writers who later became well known, including A. A. Milne, Michael Frayn, Stevie Smith, Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath. During the 1970s, it ran into trouble – dwindling money, mounting apathy – from which it was rescued by a small group of postgraduates who successfully and surprisingly relaunched it as a magazine of new writing, with both writers and their audience drawn from the world beyond Cambridge.

Reviews

[Gowaart · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some good stories, a lot of decent ones, one or two I didn't care for but no real clunkers. Except maybe Hanif Kureishi's "Girl", which, if it indeed takes some autobiographical cues as I suspect, would be evidence for Kureishi being a pompous pseudo-intellectual (I have only read "The Buddha of Suburbia" quite long ago, and am not familiar with his persona). None of the stories are groundbreaking, most are narratively quite conventional, except "Blue Sky Like Water" by Livi Michael which was formally a little more adventurous. My highlights: Peter Ho Davies' "On The Terraces", Tobias Hill's "Iris", Michelle Huneven's "The Foot", and David Treuer's "Thanksgiving."

[sisterimapoet · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good selection, a few duds, a few near misses, and four or five that really stood out and introduced me to a couple of new names.

[Kate McCarthy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Only a few shorts I really enjoyed in this collection.