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Granta: The Magazine of New Writing #146
Granta 146: The Politics of Feeling
Granta 146 is guest-edited by Devorah Baum and Josh Appignanesi. We're living through hysterical times. Rage, resentment, shame, guilt and paranoia are everywhere surfacing, as is the intemperate adoration or hatred of popular but divisive public figures. Political discourse suffers when people seem to trust only what they feel and can no longer be swayed by reason or facts. If extreme feelings are a contagion within the political cultures of today, so too is the spread of a kind of affectlessness, as if we're starting to resemble the very technologies that threaten to replace us. Featuring vital new fiction, non-fiction, photography and poetry from across the globe, this issue is all about how our feelings make our politics, and how our politics make us feel. PLUS :
Benjamin Markovits, Olga Tokarczuk and Joff Winterhart
Alissa Quart and Nick Laird
Diana Matar, introduced by Max Houghton
Benjamin Markovits, Olga Tokarczuk and Joff Winterhart
Alissa Quart and Nick Laird
Diana Matar, introduced by Max Houghton
- GenresFictionShort Stories
256 pages, Paperback
Published February 14, 2019
17 people are currently reading
64 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
September 27, 2019
What I love about Granta is starting an essay thinking "Errrp. Not really into this" and a few pages later, hitting myself and thinking, "Idiot. Look what you almost missed out on!"
Josh Cohen's "Lazy Boy" and Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor's "Distilling Existence" were incredible, and Peter Pomerantsev puts in more frightening evidence for our post-Soviet existence. Like other reviewers, I skipped the psychologist interview. Maybe I'll hit myself later for that one.
Josh Cohen's "Lazy Boy" and Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor's "Distilling Existence" were incredible, and Peter Pomerantsev puts in more frightening evidence for our post-Soviet existence. Like other reviewers, I skipped the psychologist interview. Maybe I'll hit myself later for that one.
May 31, 2019
As always, it is sheer pleasure once every quarter to take refuge in a number of well curated short stories that take you places that you otherwise never venture!
March 27, 2019
I have been a subscriber to Granta magazine for some time and this issue, because of the subject matter and the quality of writing, is my favourite so far. It explores “feelings”.
For however fanatically certain or dizzyingly uncertain they may make us, our feelings needn’t only be a problem for politics - they can equally be a resource, and maybe even a solution.
For however fanatically certain or dizzyingly uncertain they may make us, our feelings needn’t only be a problem for politics - they can equally be a resource, and maybe even a solution.
May 13, 2019
This edition was guest edited, but it is yet another example of the mish-mash that has characterized the Grantas of recent years. The majority of contributions are non-fiction, ranging from the trite to the worthwhile, with a swamp of mediocrity in between. An interview conducted by one of the editors would have benefitted from a rigorous edit — or, better yet, left in the waste basket of on-line items.
Olga Tokarczak’s story “Borderland” was the only piece of fiction that engaged me. Granta doesn’t bother to tell us, but I presume it is an extract of her long historical novel, “Ksiegi Jakubowe” (2014), to be published in English next year as “The Books of Jacob”.
Aside from a couple of readable memoirs, there are also a number of essays that address, with varying degrees of directness, the topic of the volume’s title. Hisham Mater’s “The Guests” does a competent job of showing the parallels and divergences of the lives and sensibilities of two writers who spent their lives in exile: Joseph Conrad and Edward Said. I have read extracts of Said’s memoirs, but Mater induces me to read more of this important writer’s more personal works.
I think the pick of the crop in this issue is Peter Pomerantsev’s “Normalnost”. Trying to make sense of what has happened in “Western”, Anglo-sphere politics since 2016 (this is, Trump and Brexit), he asks us to re-examine the trajectory of Russian politics since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Even before Putin, politics was being hollowed out; ideas and ideology were rapidly replaced by “fairy-tales”, vague slogans that served to bring together sometimes quite diverse groups to vote the same way on the day. This phenomenon, now greatly facilitated by social media, has infected our political life — but don’t blame Putin, we are doing it to ourselves.
Olga Tokarczak’s story “Borderland” was the only piece of fiction that engaged me. Granta doesn’t bother to tell us, but I presume it is an extract of her long historical novel, “Ksiegi Jakubowe” (2014), to be published in English next year as “The Books of Jacob”.
Aside from a couple of readable memoirs, there are also a number of essays that address, with varying degrees of directness, the topic of the volume’s title. Hisham Mater’s “The Guests” does a competent job of showing the parallels and divergences of the lives and sensibilities of two writers who spent their lives in exile: Joseph Conrad and Edward Said. I have read extracts of Said’s memoirs, but Mater induces me to read more of this important writer’s more personal works.
I think the pick of the crop in this issue is Peter Pomerantsev’s “Normalnost”. Trying to make sense of what has happened in “Western”, Anglo-sphere politics since 2016 (this is, Trump and Brexit), he asks us to re-examine the trajectory of Russian politics since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Even before Putin, politics was being hollowed out; ideas and ideology were rapidly replaced by “fairy-tales”, vague slogans that served to bring together sometimes quite diverse groups to vote the same way on the day. This phenomenon, now greatly facilitated by social media, has infected our political life — but don’t blame Putin, we are doing it to ourselves.
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May 13, 2019The Politics Of Feeling--so weighty a title-- began tepidly. An essay about the tactile communication of the Chinese seemed a little too generalized--or too specific to one person's experience. Lazy Boy was another riff on the sitting POTUS. I actually didn't read the interview with Adam Phillips. It's never that I skip a piece in Granta, but this time, I started, and was immediately bored with the first question about psychoanalysis in politics. Even Olga Tokarczuk's Borderland was wanting. It felt like something I had read from her before.
Granta 146, for me, begins with Distilling Existence, a study of a man surviving and providing what he can for his family by his wits and effort making chang'aa, a liquor particular to Kenya.
The essays on satire and politics, on the collapse of the Soviet Union and the rise of chaos everywhere, on politics on Twitterfeeds, on becoming an SJW (I had to look up the acronym), and Hanif Kureishi's piece about improvising were engaging. I promised myself to read William Davies' Populism And Humour again.
Margie Orford's Harmflesh and Joff Winterhart's graphic story, B Road Encounter were both powerful. I will look for Orford's writing elsewhere.
"Conspiracy is what happens when ideologies run out...Instead of a normative debate about who is right or wrong, they act as a way to divide between 'us' and 'them'. You can't argue with a conspiracy, you're either on one side of it or the other."
-from Peter Pomerantsev, Normalnost
Granta 146, for me, begins with Distilling Existence, a study of a man surviving and providing what he can for his family by his wits and effort making chang'aa, a liquor particular to Kenya.
The essays on satire and politics, on the collapse of the Soviet Union and the rise of chaos everywhere, on politics on Twitterfeeds, on becoming an SJW (I had to look up the acronym), and Hanif Kureishi's piece about improvising were engaging. I promised myself to read William Davies' Populism And Humour again.
Margie Orford's Harmflesh and Joff Winterhart's graphic story, B Road Encounter were both powerful. I will look for Orford's writing elsewhere.
"Conspiracy is what happens when ideologies run out...Instead of a normative debate about who is right or wrong, they act as a way to divide between 'us' and 'them'. You can't argue with a conspiracy, you're either on one side of it or the other."
-from Peter Pomerantsev, Normalnost
March 25, 2019
In this edition there were more pieces than usual which didn't interest me, or not much. There were also pieces with potential which were squandered, interesting topics with nothing new to say about them - such as the article about politics and humour.
The main theme is the meeting of politics and emotions, as the title suggests. There are also a lot of writers from the Southern Hemisphere.
The more I read Granta, the more I see the same essay structure repeated.
The fiction is all ok, but no more than that.
I come away remembering a few individuals, none of whom are self-indulgent writers. The Kenyan alcohol brewer, the South American Goth, the beaten South African boy, the Patagonian sheep shearer, the man in the queue in China and the Russian propagandist.
The main theme is the meeting of politics and emotions, as the title suggests. There are also a lot of writers from the Southern Hemisphere.
The more I read Granta, the more I see the same essay structure repeated.
The fiction is all ok, but no more than that.
I come away remembering a few individuals, none of whom are self-indulgent writers. The Kenyan alcohol brewer, the South American Goth, the beaten South African boy, the Patagonian sheep shearer, the man in the queue in China and the Russian propagandist.
May 19, 2019
As always with an issue of Granta, there are articles that both impress and introduce us to new voices. The theme of this edition is “ the politics of feeling”, and it took me some time to understand how it linked the articles together. But articles by Hisham Matar on Edward Said and Joseph Conrad (“Guests”) and Fabian Martinez Siccardi on Patagonia ( “Feeling Southern”) helped. Two articles really stood out—Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor’s portrait of an illicit distiller in the slums of Nairobi (“Distilling Existence”), and a brilliant essay on Russia and the end of ideology by Peter Pomerantsev ( “Normalnost”) and its implications for the West. Writing about Russia and the end of the Communist regime in the 1990s, he concludes “ This collapse was not just of the political system, but of a system of making sense of the world.” When one considers political systems around the world today, with populist challenges to liberal democracies on the rise, these words ring true and support his view that what happened in Russia was a precursor for the West. A scary thought. Finally, the issue ends with a lovely piece about Keith Jarrett and London in the 1970s by Hanif Kureshi—which led me to discover Jarrett’s celebrated “ Köln Concert”. Lots to discover in a Granta 146.
April 1, 2019
A sterling collection, one of my favorites because of its timeliness.
How to separate feeling from thought, from opinion, from tribal loyalties? What role does psychology play in politics? How to "see" history and yet be in the moment? When feeling dominates politics, what are the repercussions? How do differences in culture, in language, in bodily communication affect politics? If feeling reigns, whence goes rational thought and civil discussion? What is the role of social media in this mess? Should it, can it, be reined in?
Nick Laird's "The Politics of Feeling," Olga Tokarczuk's "Borderland," David Baddiel's "#TeamBaddiel Vs #TeamBabel," Diana Matar's "American Orchard," Margie Orford's "Harmflesh," and Peter Pomerantsev's "Normalnost" remain with me in strong ways. Don't have time to detail that strength, but do believe that this issue of Granta is provocative and thought-provoking.
How to separate feeling from thought, from opinion, from tribal loyalties? What role does psychology play in politics? How to "see" history and yet be in the moment? When feeling dominates politics, what are the repercussions? How do differences in culture, in language, in bodily communication affect politics? If feeling reigns, whence goes rational thought and civil discussion? What is the role of social media in this mess? Should it, can it, be reined in?
Nick Laird's "The Politics of Feeling," Olga Tokarczuk's "Borderland," David Baddiel's "#TeamBaddiel Vs #TeamBabel," Diana Matar's "American Orchard," Margie Orford's "Harmflesh," and Peter Pomerantsev's "Normalnost" remain with me in strong ways. Don't have time to detail that strength, but do believe that this issue of Granta is provocative and thought-provoking.
July 14, 2019
I've recently decided to stop subscribing to Granta and issues like this are the reason, it was a struggle to get through, some of the pieces just awful (the psychologist interview, why?), and some very rewarding (the last 2 especially). Been reading Granta for a long time and had i not been subscribed would never pick up an issue about "The politics of Feeling" but I guess i'm not a post graduate english/psych major. I have a number of back issues to catch up on and perhaps with a change in direction Granta will be more interesting in future.
August 13, 2019
This edition of Granta focuses on the recent political ideologies and it is reflected upon the stories it has. Every story has some sort of political ideology sprinkled in and each story therefore gives a different flavour. I really enjoyed the interview about psychoanalysis and its relation to politics.
The story that I felt was most impactful for me was "The Guest" by Poppy Sebag-Montefiore. The concept of guest was executed perfectly and it really makes you think of what makes one to belong to somewhere and what makes someone be a "guest".
The story that I felt was most impactful for me was "The Guest" by Poppy Sebag-Montefiore. The concept of guest was executed perfectly and it really makes you think of what makes one to belong to somewhere and what makes someone be a "guest".
May 2, 2019
I get granta mostly for the fiction, although usually the non-fiction is fairly interesting in there too.
This issue was almost all non-fiction though, essays and autobiography, and a lot of it was forcefully wordy, to a fault, hard to engage with and a bit moralistic. I'm pretty liberal but it was kind of hard work.
More fiction next time I hope.
This issue was almost all non-fiction though, essays and autobiography, and a lot of it was forcefully wordy, to a fault, hard to engage with and a bit moralistic. I'm pretty liberal but it was kind of hard work.
More fiction next time I hope.
October 20, 2025
The introduction to one of the photo essays in this volume references the neuroscience fact that our evolved brains create our reality as much as we perceive it. Exploring the political dimensions or emotions and the emotional dimensions of politics is the forceful interplay at work in this volume.
May 7, 2020
Favorieten : Benjamin Markovits/Anouchka Grose/Margie Oxford
April 4, 2025
Although I respect and enjoy Granta, this issue was a bad one: full of identita non-fiction (Jewish, Kenyan, Argentinian, Palestinian, Liberal) that focuses mainly on politics (which I profoundly despise). The only bright light was Olga Tokarczuk's Borderland, a wonderful dystopian short story.
February 13, 2019
As usual a mixed bag. My favourite pieces were Borderland by Olga Tokarczuk, Feeling Southern by Fabian Martinez Siccardi, David Baddiel's piece about Twitter and Normalnost by Peter Pomerantsev
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews