Explore Essays and memoir
Sort by:
Sort by:
China Time
Thomas Meaney
‘At a time when China has become a unifying specter of menace for Western governments, this issue of Granta brings the country’s literary culture into focus.’
The editor introduces the issue.
Picun
Han Zhang
‘The stories being written by Picun writers and their peers show the effort and the ingenuity required to survive as migrant workers, builders of the economic miracle.’
Han Zhang on the New Workers’ Literature Group of Picun.
Adrift in the South
Xiao Hai
‘Finally! I thought. Now I get to work in a big factory. I was fifteen and a half years old. I was a child laborer.’
Xiao Hai on coming of age in the factories of Shenzhen, translated by Tony Hao.
Doing the Work
Emily Berry
‘I loved being a receptionist. What I loved about it was playing the part of being a receptionist.’
Emily Berry on being a temporary office worker.
My Spiritual Evolution
Tao Lin
‘I came to feel that I was hiding here in the physical world, like a child who hides in a computer game to escape a more consequential reality.’
Tao Lin on his spiritual awakening, via psychedelics and the literature of near-death experiences.
Notes on Craft
Sigrid Rausing
‘I think I stayed with the text for as long as I needed to give meaning to my grief, crying not in Johanna’s absence but with her.’
Sigrid Rausing on transcribing, translating and editing Johanna Ekström’s final notebooks.
Doing the Work
Sandra Newman
‘I was constantly reading job ads, trying to find my holy grail – a job I could stand to do, and someone foolish enough to hire me.’
Sandra Newman on learning how to play professional blackjack.
Doing the Work
A. K. Blakemore
‘Anyone who has ever worked night shifts will understand the vertiginous feeling that comes with staring down the day from the wrong end.’
A.K. Blakemore on working nights.
Silas Lucas
Garth Risk Hallberg
‘Thinking back to that summer of Silas Lucas, I can see my father trying to invent for me the place where the actual and the possible meet to make something new.’
Garth Risk Hallberg on the borderline business of telling stories.
Doing the Work
Camilla Grudova
‘I think there should be a National Service of Hospitality. The best way to see the true face of humanity is to serve it a plate of chips.’
Camilla Grudova on bad-mannered customers.
Chicken Crazy
Thom Sliwowski
‘Patterns in my love life, things I read, my dreams and distant memories together wove plush carpets of significance.’
An essay by Thom Sliwowski on chicken, abstinence and polyamory.
Severalls
Tom Lee
‘He was in tears but also relieved because finally there was an acknowledgement that something was wrong with him.’
Tom Lee on his father’s admission to a psychiatric hospital.
