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Granta: The Magazine of New Writing #150
Granta 150: There Must Be Ways to Organise the World with Language
Four times a year, Britain's most prestigious literary magazine brings you the best new fiction, reportage, memoir, poetry and photography from around the world. From Nobel laureates to debut novelists, international translations to investigative journalism, each issue of Granta turns the attention of the world's best writers on to one aspect of the way we live now. Granta does not have a political or literary manifesto, but it does have a belief in the power and urgency of the story and its supreme ability to describe, illuminate and make real.
This winter issue includes reportage from Oliver Bullough in the Cayman Islands; Joseph Z�rate in the Amazon; and John Ryle on global conservationist struggles over white rhinos.
Plus, new fiction from Jason Ockert.
This winter issue includes reportage from Oliver Bullough in the Cayman Islands; Joseph Z�rate in the Amazon; and John Ryle on global conservationist struggles over white rhinos.
Plus, new fiction from Jason Ockert.
256 pages, Paperback
Published February 20, 2020
12 people are currently reading
90 people want to read
About the author
Sigrid Rausing
45 books52 followersSigrid Rausing is Editor and Publisher of Granta magazine and Publisher of Granta and Portobello Books. She is the author of History, Memory and Identity in Post-Soviet Estonia: The End of a Collective Farm and Everything is Wonderful, which has been translated into four different languages.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
February 18, 2020
Another collection of fact, fiction and photographs from Granta. These are always interesting to read, but this was, I think, my least favourite edition in the several years I have been a subscriber. Somehow, the overarching theme just didn’t seem to be as visible as normal and the quality of the pieces wasn’t to the same standard as normal.
I will definitely continue to read this magazine, though, as it is always thought provoking and it always exposes the reader (well, this reader) to new writers, which is a good thing.
I will definitely continue to read this magazine, though, as it is always thought provoking and it always exposes the reader (well, this reader) to new writers, which is a good thing.
September 19, 2020
The beautiful line on the front cover "There must be ways to organise the world with language" made me dive straight into Pwaangulongh Daoud's "Binyavanga", a moving tribute to the late Kenyan writer. From Carmen Maria Machado's 'The Lost Performance of the High Priestess of the Temple of Horror' to Michael Collins' A Portrait of My Mother, this edition has enough in it to read from cover to cover, which I did.
September 5, 2020
Uneven but some great stories in here by Carmen Maria Machado, Amy Leach, Sidik Fofana, and Che Yeun. The others are good, except the magical/hysterical realist story which I’ll not name. My eyes glaze over when there’s a character with an obtrusively wacky name. Worth reading but as some readers have commented, the theme doesn’t really hold these pieces together this time around.
February 9, 2020
A better than average issue I reckon.
April 14, 2020
This issue of Granta is about language itself as it explores different forms and structures. The authors use words and images to stretch the medium to match their subject matter. The most obvious example is Sidik Fofana’s piece on teenage entrepreneurs told in the street English of the black American South. It's not the story that matters, it's how you tell it. As well as the variation in form, there's a huge variation in location background and settings for all the pieces.
There's a graphic novel extract by Tommi Parrish. That's a new structure for me and the visual tells its own story because features of the men in it are exaggerated.
There's a visceral violent story by Carmen Maria Machado. It describes how a young woman is drawn towards participating in stage violence in Paris in early 1900's. Told in her words and the reader does get right inside the young woman's mind as she goes from enthralled audience to participant to star.
Andrew O'Hagan got to talk to the long surviving wife or Neal Cassady, Jack Kerouac's running mate when he was drinking himself to set up the beat generation. Neal Cassady travelled across America with Jack Kerouac and others, an epic road trip described in Kerouac's novel On the Road.
There's a poem called Scheherazade Conjoining. It's a small prose piece but the content is as abstract as poetry. It captures the strangeness of an intercontinental flight with your face squashed up against the plane porthole and thoughts interrupted by the pilots announcements and flight attendants trolley offerings.
There is a lecture by Amy Leach to animals and why and how they should count in order to elevate themselves up to the standard of humans. It's really a reflection of how humans have been progressively counting the world more and more and how we now interpret our world with hard numbers. Current pandemic daily death count is the ultimate counting for survival.
Michael Collins (or Cohen) tells a story in brief brutal language that brings out his anger as he dealt with his mother's decline over ten years in extreme detail. He brought his mother to life when describing her youth and parents. He describes an old photo of his parents sitting on the car up in Lake Windemere - it's a classic photo which everyone took in the 1950. Then he gives us a set of jarring photos of his mother every year in the last ten years of her life. The photos complement the story so this is another example of structure driving the narrative.
Pwaangulongii Dauod has a eulogy of Binyavanga Wainain who died at 48 recently. Binyavanga wrote the best critique that I've ever read in Granta of white people writing about Africa. It's called 'How to write about Africa' and was written in 2005 as a critique of Granta's issue about Africa from the early 90's. It starts with Always use the word ‘Africa’ or ‘Darkness’ or ‘Safari’ in your title. And it gets better from there. ‘There must be ways to organise the world with language,’ Dauod says which gives the title to this issue.
Mazen Maarouf’s ‘The Story of Anya’ is a pretty confusing meandering of a teenage boy obsessed with a girl in some modern setting. There is a little bit of magic realism which doesn't really do it for me.
Che Yeun’s story is about a teenager who developed a friendship with another girl which places her outside the rest of the girls in her class. It seems like a very strict system with corporal punishment but we are not told where and when the story is except that its pre-mobile phones.
There's a set of photos to accompany an essay about the Menonite community and how they've been persecuted in different times and places over the last few centuries.
There's an investigative essay by Oliver Bullough of how the British Virgin Islands system of shell companies works. They did it by re-writing the legal code of the small island to allow companies worldwide to avoid tax. Granta should do a similar story about Ireland and this essay reminds me of earlier Grantas which were more political.
The third photo set is a series of shots of different women who left for North Korea sixty years previously. The series of eighty year old faces staring out from photos of Japanese women who moved to North Korea in their twenties tells a powerful six decade story.
The two poems by Jack Underwood at the end have a unusual structure. They look like prose but the content is poetic so again form and structure drives the message.
There's a graphic novel extract by Tommi Parrish. That's a new structure for me and the visual tells its own story because features of the men in it are exaggerated.
There's a visceral violent story by Carmen Maria Machado. It describes how a young woman is drawn towards participating in stage violence in Paris in early 1900's. Told in her words and the reader does get right inside the young woman's mind as she goes from enthralled audience to participant to star.
Andrew O'Hagan got to talk to the long surviving wife or Neal Cassady, Jack Kerouac's running mate when he was drinking himself to set up the beat generation. Neal Cassady travelled across America with Jack Kerouac and others, an epic road trip described in Kerouac's novel On the Road.
There's a poem called Scheherazade Conjoining. It's a small prose piece but the content is as abstract as poetry. It captures the strangeness of an intercontinental flight with your face squashed up against the plane porthole and thoughts interrupted by the pilots announcements and flight attendants trolley offerings.
There is a lecture by Amy Leach to animals and why and how they should count in order to elevate themselves up to the standard of humans. It's really a reflection of how humans have been progressively counting the world more and more and how we now interpret our world with hard numbers. Current pandemic daily death count is the ultimate counting for survival.
Michael Collins (or Cohen) tells a story in brief brutal language that brings out his anger as he dealt with his mother's decline over ten years in extreme detail. He brought his mother to life when describing her youth and parents. He describes an old photo of his parents sitting on the car up in Lake Windemere - it's a classic photo which everyone took in the 1950. Then he gives us a set of jarring photos of his mother every year in the last ten years of her life. The photos complement the story so this is another example of structure driving the narrative.
Pwaangulongii Dauod has a eulogy of Binyavanga Wainain who died at 48 recently. Binyavanga wrote the best critique that I've ever read in Granta of white people writing about Africa. It's called 'How to write about Africa' and was written in 2005 as a critique of Granta's issue about Africa from the early 90's. It starts with Always use the word ‘Africa’ or ‘Darkness’ or ‘Safari’ in your title. And it gets better from there. ‘There must be ways to organise the world with language,’ Dauod says which gives the title to this issue.
Mazen Maarouf’s ‘The Story of Anya’ is a pretty confusing meandering of a teenage boy obsessed with a girl in some modern setting. There is a little bit of magic realism which doesn't really do it for me.
Che Yeun’s story is about a teenager who developed a friendship with another girl which places her outside the rest of the girls in her class. It seems like a very strict system with corporal punishment but we are not told where and when the story is except that its pre-mobile phones.
There's a set of photos to accompany an essay about the Menonite community and how they've been persecuted in different times and places over the last few centuries.
There's an investigative essay by Oliver Bullough of how the British Virgin Islands system of shell companies works. They did it by re-writing the legal code of the small island to allow companies worldwide to avoid tax. Granta should do a similar story about Ireland and this essay reminds me of earlier Grantas which were more political.
The third photo set is a series of shots of different women who left for North Korea sixty years previously. The series of eighty year old faces staring out from photos of Japanese women who moved to North Korea in their twenties tells a powerful six decade story.
The two poems by Jack Underwood at the end have a unusual structure. They look like prose but the content is poetic so again form and structure drives the message.
April 27, 2020
It was the non-fiction stood out to me on this collection, two pieces focused on old age particularly. Michael Collins' A Portrait of My Mother documents his mother's decline from a series of strokes with firm sentimentality while Andrew O'Hagan's Carolyn briefly captures the richness of people unexpectedly around us. Oliver Bullough closed this edition with a wonderful piece The Second Career of Michael Riegels about the curious history of the British Virgin Islands and how they came to loom large in global financial systems and why that position is shifting.
As for the fiction I was really taken by Carmen Maria Machado's The Lost Performance of the High Priestess of the Temple of Horror and will definitely look at her other works which had been on my radar before reading this short story.
The theme of language didn't feel present to me or tie it all together. I read Granta for the chance to be exposed to new writers and perspective so I often put the theme to the side.
As for the fiction I was really taken by Carmen Maria Machado's The Lost Performance of the High Priestess of the Temple of Horror and will definitely look at her other works which had been on my radar before reading this short story.
The theme of language didn't feel present to me or tie it all together. I read Granta for the chance to be exposed to new writers and perspective so I often put the theme to the side.
April 8, 2020
Not a great issue. Almost all of the pieces were hard to relate to, uninspiring or uninsightful. The quality was okay on the whole, but as always the variety was good and the photo essays were interesting.
Special mention for Sidik Fofana's American vernacular piece (which reminded me of Miss Jean Brodie if only for the portrayal of the fawning teenager lacking in judgent). Michael Collins piece on his mother's decline through dementia was well written and inevitably sad, and I take my hat onto him.for his honesty (... he doesnt come across well).
The pick of the bunch was a good read about the British Virgin Isles, particularly but not entirely, the rise and fall of the shell company. It was a well written and informative piece, just preachy enough.
But there was too much in here which was a bit dull or trying to hard and I reckon that when the best piece in your journal of new writing is a journalistic piece about globalisation, it's hard to give more than 3 stars.
Special mention for Sidik Fofana's American vernacular piece (which reminded me of Miss Jean Brodie if only for the portrayal of the fawning teenager lacking in judgent). Michael Collins piece on his mother's decline through dementia was well written and inevitably sad, and I take my hat onto him.for his honesty (... he doesnt come across well).
The pick of the bunch was a good read about the British Virgin Isles, particularly but not entirely, the rise and fall of the shell company. It was a well written and informative piece, just preachy enough.
But there was too much in here which was a bit dull or trying to hard and I reckon that when the best piece in your journal of new writing is a journalistic piece about globalisation, it's hard to give more than 3 stars.
April 16, 2020
My rating is 1 star shy because of the piece by Amy Leach. It wasn't going anywhere and I lost interest rather quickly. On the plus side, Machado's story was brilliant. She has such a unique style that captivates readers. I was also quite impressed with Mazen Maarouf's 'The Story of Anya' and how the lack of setting complemented the interweaving of dreams in a young boy's mind. Michael Collins' essay on the final years of his mother's life is poignant and relevant. Two thumbs up as well for the shorts by Sidik Fofana and Che Yeun. If there was a common link between some, but not all, of these pieces is that language is used in different forms and styles to weave interesting pieces but I must admit that the overarching theme is but a whisper compared to other Granta editions.
May 6, 2020
Viel algemeen wat tegen.
Favorieten:
Favorieten:
"How to Count Like a Pro" Amy Leach
"A Portrait of My Mother" Michael Collins
"Yena" Che Yeun
May 16, 2020
And this person is just like us.
It could be us. Only it isn't.
But you do know this person.
I can tell you that much.
Though of course, I needn't tell you.
You know exactly who I'm talking about.
It could be us. Only it isn't.
But you do know this person.
I can tell you that much.
Though of course, I needn't tell you.
You know exactly who I'm talking about.
June 25, 2020
I liked Machado and Yeun's stories because... they were stories and I knew what the f was going on. Some of these works were so experimental in structure and so opaque that reading them felt like half listening to someone else's dreams over a staticky phone call.
March 17, 2020
Although the premise of "organizing the world through language" is intriguing, I found this celebratory edition lacking in coherence and punch.
The photography was most arresting, especially that of Michael Collins's mother, Noriko Hayashi's Japanese Wives and Ian Willms's bleak and beautiful photos of Mennonite scenes in Russian and other areas.
I did so like Sidik Fofanoa's "The Young Entrepreneurs of Miss Bristol's Front Porch," Collins's "A Portrait of my Mother," Pwaangulongh Daoud's "Binyavanga," and Mazen Maarouf's "The Story of Anya." That said, I was disturbed at both tone and content in many pieces and didn't understand their link to language.
Maybe my darkish reaction is CoVid-19 - related?
The sky is dappled beautifully this early morning.
The photography was most arresting, especially that of Michael Collins's mother, Noriko Hayashi's Japanese Wives and Ian Willms's bleak and beautiful photos of Mennonite scenes in Russian and other areas.
I did so like Sidik Fofanoa's "The Young Entrepreneurs of Miss Bristol's Front Porch," Collins's "A Portrait of my Mother," Pwaangulongh Daoud's "Binyavanga," and Mazen Maarouf's "The Story of Anya." That said, I was disturbed at both tone and content in many pieces and didn't understand their link to language.
Maybe my darkish reaction is CoVid-19 - related?
The sky is dappled beautifully this early morning.
June 21, 2020
A collection of works intended to explore language this issue felt more elusive to me than usual, with some decidedly poetic passages sprinkled throughout.
July 1, 2020
The stars of this collection are probably "Binyavanga" and Carmen Maria Machado's masterful lesbian horror-romance.
July 16, 2020
Slightly depressing, dystopian and disturbing stories in the main. Not really sure how the "theme" comes together, if at all.
August 16, 2020
Beautiful collection; the first story "The Lost Performance of the High Priestess of the Temple of Horror" haunted me for a week.
December 31, 2020
Picked up this book at HOME in Manchester when visiting to watch a show. Loved some of the stories, but couldn’t quite see how it tied together with the theme!
October 9, 2021
I used to love Granta, but lately some of it is almost unreadable to me. Did I change, or did they?
March 17, 2020
Carmen Maria Machado’s story gets 5 stars and is more than enough to justify buying this issue of Granta for the shelf.
March 9, 2020
This contained nowhere near as much in the way of writing which immediately appealed as did the previous issue (my first). Yet in many ways it was stimulating, and a learning experience, to read such a wide and unexpected variety of writings, some of which deserve to be returned to in, perhaps, a different frame of mind.
Read
August 28, 2022This issue of Granta promised much with its vibrant cover and bold title. The table of contents offered less, with only a few titles or authors enticing to me.
Reading, however, was fulfilling. This was one of my favorite volumes of Granta.
Michael Collins’ account of his mother’s decline in health and death was oddly mundane and compelling. His accompanying photographs drew me in, searching her face for signs of further impairment in each subsequent image. Maybe that sounds cold.
Just after finishing Collins’ essay, I was walking downtown in my own hometown, an ocean away from Collins’ setting, and a woman stepped out of the drugstore and walked past me. In that fleeting moment, I recognised her similar facial features, and her white hair worn in the same way, from the photographs. It took me a moment, of course. “A Portrait of My Mother” ends with a certain finality.
It happened that I was reading “The Story of Anya” by Mazen Marrouf on Valentine’s Day. It is a tale of adolescent, unrequited love, inscrutable and making perfect sense.
“Yena” by Che Yuen revealed some traditional family dynamics and those of teenagers.
I enjoyed learning more about Binyavanga Wainaina in the essay on his career.
Andrew O’Hagen’s piece about Neil Cassady’s widow offered some reflection on a few Beat writers. The essay on Japanese Wives was insightful, as was Oliver Bullough’s story on the invention of shell companies. The latter was enraging, as well.
Jack Underwood’s two short pieces on the final pages are a perfect coda to this volume.
Reading, however, was fulfilling. This was one of my favorite volumes of Granta.
Michael Collins’ account of his mother’s decline in health and death was oddly mundane and compelling. His accompanying photographs drew me in, searching her face for signs of further impairment in each subsequent image. Maybe that sounds cold.
Just after finishing Collins’ essay, I was walking downtown in my own hometown, an ocean away from Collins’ setting, and a woman stepped out of the drugstore and walked past me. In that fleeting moment, I recognised her similar facial features, and her white hair worn in the same way, from the photographs. It took me a moment, of course. “A Portrait of My Mother” ends with a certain finality.
It happened that I was reading “The Story of Anya” by Mazen Marrouf on Valentine’s Day. It is a tale of adolescent, unrequited love, inscrutable and making perfect sense.
“Yena” by Che Yuen revealed some traditional family dynamics and those of teenagers.
I enjoyed learning more about Binyavanga Wainaina in the essay on his career.
Andrew O’Hagen’s piece about Neil Cassady’s widow offered some reflection on a few Beat writers. The essay on Japanese Wives was insightful, as was Oliver Bullough’s story on the invention of shell companies. The latter was enraging, as well.
Jack Underwood’s two short pieces on the final pages are a perfect coda to this volume.
February 4, 2022
Very unimpressive issue by Granta.. even though it has a fascinating title and premise, most of the content within seems entirely unrelated to it. Many of the stories were nonsensical verging on the unreadable, even if they had great ideas..
There are pieces definitely worth reading, like Carmen Maria Machado's story or Michael Collins' "A portrait of my mother" (and photographs). The high point was Oliver Bullough',s account of how tax havens to be in the British Virgin Islands, exploring both sides of the coin beautifully.
Overall I am glad I read it, but unlikely to ever pick it up again.
There are pieces definitely worth reading, like Carmen Maria Machado's story or Michael Collins' "A portrait of my mother" (and photographs). The high point was Oliver Bullough',s account of how tax havens to be in the British Virgin Islands, exploring both sides of the coin beautifully.
Overall I am glad I read it, but unlikely to ever pick it up again.
February 5, 2020
Not the best Granta.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews