Granta 43: Best of Young British Novelists 2

Granta: The Magazine of New Writing #43

by Bill Buford (Editor)

Granta 43 celebrates a new generation of twenty of the best new British writers. Selected by Salman Rushdie, A. S. Byatt, John Mitchinson and Bill Buford.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

320 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1993

About the author

William Holmes Buford is an American author and journalist. He is the author of the books Among the Thugs and Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany. Buford was previously the fiction editor for The New Yorker, where he is still on staff. For sixteen years, he was the editor of Granta, which he relaunched in 1979. He is also credited with coining the term "dirty realism".

Reviews

[Mimosa Tamminen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Collection, I knew like 2 authors
(Ishiguros text was suprisingly good)
-But too many short storys and authors. This would be great if i was particularly interested in british writers. Yeah cant complain, the name made it clear.
-Skipped a few stories tbh
-im kinda dissapointed
-there was some reaaalyy good texts too tho and the book was very pleasing in an aesthetic sense ( nice pictures and the cover is so good!

[Frida A · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 en total, pero me permitió encontrar nuevos autores, y definitivamente voy a buscar más de su trabajo. Mis favoritos fueron:

Born Again, Anne Billson
Lessons in inhaling, Esther Freud
Neighbors, Adam Mars-Jones
A Bizarre Courtship, Ben Okri
West, Caryl Phillips
Heavy weather, Helen Simpson

[Eleanor Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s interesting reading this collection 30 years after it was originally published. I enjoyed many of the short stories, and was interesting for me to get an insight into the early careers of some authors I’ve read previously. The editors letter was shocking, in particular comments around the quality of submissions from women writers. Shows the challenges and barriers that women faced in publishing at the time.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Granta seemingly always provides the goods and The Best of Young British Novelists is no exception to this. With 20 excellent short stories to keep you busy, the only thing I could complain about is how bloody heavy the book is. This paper is seemingly made from sheets of lead; don't throw it at anyone--you could easily kill them.

Now, while I found all 2o short stories excellent, I most certainly didn't enjoy them all. This sounds ridiculous, so I'll explain.

I found the talent and technique used in the stories I didn't enjoy fascinating, which makes me appreciate them, regardless of whether I actually enjoyed the story or not. A peek behind the curtain is always interesting.

It's funny, reading this from the 'future' as one can see quite evidently what was considered 'shocking' or 'counter-cultural' at the time based on these short stories and how things are described. Especially topics such as gay relationships and drugs. Both are quite blase now and no one blinks an eye.

These I still enjoyed reading, even if it was just to get some perspective on the issue and how far common acceptance of these topics are. Hooray for humanity, and what not.

If you're looking for a great selection of short stories, each one taking somewhere between 5 minutes to 15 minutes to read, and covering a great spectrum of characters and topics, look no further!

Stories I loved:

- Iain Banks' Under Ice
- Louis de Bernieres' The Brass Bar
- Anne Billson's Born Again (Very funny and entertaining)
- A. L. Kennedy's Failing to Fall (Ever more poignant with the rise of apps like Tinder)
- Philip Kerr's Reference Points (That first sentence was stuck in my head for days)
- Adam Mars-Jones' Neighbours
- Lawrence Norfolk's A Bosnian Alphabet (I was strangely compelled to finish this once I started)
- Helen Simpson's Heavy Weather (A great way to describe parenthood, I thought)
- Jeanette Winterson's The Poetics of Sex

Stories I liked:

- Esther Freud's Lessons in Inhaling (Mostly because of the ridiculous portrayal of acid had me giggling)
- Alan Hollinghurst's Sharps and Flats
- Kazuo Ishiguro's The Gourmet (The ending left me underwhelmed)
- Adam Lively's Letters from Wellfleet
- Candia McWilliam's The Many Colours of Blood
- Ben Okri's A Bizzare Courtship
- Will Self's Scale
- Nicholas Shakespeare's Waverly's Last Post

Stories I had to put up with:

- Tibor Fischer's Listed for Trial (Found this utterly dreadful and boring. But liked his writing style nonetheless)
- Hanif Kureishi's Eight Arms to Hold You (The worst of the lot--I couldn't finish it. Basically an essay on The Beatles...)
- Caryl Phillips' West (There was one section where his use of parentheses was very good, though)

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1993, ten years after Granta 7: Best of Young British Novelists, a panel of judges was again assembled to decide who the best young British writers of the time were.

Like that first book, the track record of success here is unerringly high: collected here are Iain Banks, Louis de Bernières, Kazuo Ishiguro, Will Self and Jeanette Winterson all of whom went on to great success in the years after this volume was published.

The selections I enjoyed most here were:

Iain Banks' 'Under Ice' - the collection gets of to a really cracking start with this piece, a fantastic illustration of how a short story's relative brevity need not prejudice its emotional resonance.

The autobiographical 'The Brass Bar' by Louis de Bernières - I will admit to being guilty of making certain assumptions about this author based both on his name and the name of his (bestselling) 'Captain Corelli's Mandolin' that this piece went a long way towards dispelling. Wickedly funny and brilliantly written.

'The Many Colours of Blood' by Candia McWilliam and 'West' by Caryl Phillips were also engrossing reads by authors who I hope to read more of in the near future.

Another great collection by Granta and again a great place to discover new (to you) writers that may have passed you by for whatever reason.

[Althea Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of short pieces by (mostly) prominent British authors (circa 1993).
Editors included Salman Rushdie and A.S. Byatt.
However, the problem with this concept is that great novelists don't tend to be great short-story writers. Many of the writers included have simply contributed excerpts from longer works, which tend to feel unfinished and abrupt. I was particularly disappointed in the Iain Banks selection - a brief snippet from 'Complicity,' which I've already read.
In the introduction, Granta's editor notes that a collection like this is really an advertisement to get people to buy novels. (It also served to make me glad, yet again, that I opted not to work in publishing, but that's another issue). Most of the selections weren't intriguing enough to get me to seek out a book - but Anne Billson's story may be an exception. I also liked Louis de Bernières charming-if-sentimental, seemingly autobiographical piece, and the Kazuo Ishiguro screenplay made the whole thing worthwhile.

[Catherine Siemann · Rating 4 out of 5]

A friend recently gave me a few back issues of Granta -- I recognized the cover on this one and realized I must have read it 15 years or so ago. Some of the stories still stuck in my mind; most did not. These are mostly novel excerpts, so that makes sense. Standouts on this rereading were Tibor Fischer's clerk's eye view of criminal court, Alan Hollinghurst (a 10 year old gay boy's first unrequited love for a slightly older schoolmate), Candia McWilliam (the final line is devastating), and Helen Simpson (a mother overwhelmed by her two very young children). The Ben Okri story not only impressed me, but motivated me to finally dig out the copy of The Famished Road I picked up at a book sale embarrassingly long ago (and which I am loving so far).

[Lexi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yummy! What a great collection. It's a bit outdated--1993--so some of these "great young authors" are common names to me, and others remain on the edges of my vision. But the stories, on varied topics, in varied styles, and to varying degrees, are fantastic. I am sucked into one after the other. Some are reminders of the 80s, some could just as easily been written yesterday. A great read, I love it! I know when I get back to a library system, I'll be looking for other Granta books--and if Granta still exists I'll be getting a subscription! Wonderful!!

[Teresa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'll pretend that I can give this 3 and 1/2 stars, since I'm wavering between 3 and 4. A mixed bag, all enjoyable, some more than others, depending on taste. My favorite of the stories was A.L. Kennedy's "Failing to Fall."

[Victoria & David Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

A mixed bag as with all such ... still there were a few stellar pieces.