Granta 137 Fiction The Boat John Connell John Connell writes of a trial and a murder during the Irish War of Independence. Essays & Memoir Victim Politics Ben Rawlence ‘The push and pull of identity politics is the child of slavery and empire.’ Ben Rawlence on empire and the construction of white identity. Fiction Armadillo Man Julianne Pachico ‘The Armadillo Man is watching her. She gives him a good show – the best she has to offer.’ Fiction Night of the Gnomes J.R. Wilcock ‘The plan was quite simple: Güendolina would invite him into the bedroom and, once there, would persuade him to make love to her as many times as was necessary until he was utterly exhausted.’ Essays & Memoir The Interpreters: Among the Brahmins of Benares Aatish Taseer ‘That first sight of the city curled around the river goes through me like the breath of something old and known and familiar.’ Aatish Taseer revisits Varanasi. The False Lords of MisrulePeter PomerantsevPeter Pomerantsev takes us on a tour of the lewd, crude language of modern politics – from Trump to Putin to Duterte, Milo Yianopoulos, Boris Johnson and more.A Land Without StrangersBen MaukBen Mauk on nationalism and xenophobia in Poland. Discoveries: Manifestos A collection of revolutionary writings and manifestos from Audre Lorde, Eileen Myles, Nelson Mandela, James Baldwin and Occupy Wall Street 4 3 2 1: OverturePaul Auster‘According to family legend, Ferguson’s grandfather departed on foot from his native city of Minsk with one hundred rubles sewn into the lining of his jacket’ Authors SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER Ken Follett Reads ‘Bad Faith’Ken FollettKen Follett reads his piece, ‘Bad Faith’, from Granta 137 Discoveries: Manifestos A collection of revolutionary writings and manifestos from Audre Lorde, Eileen Myles, Nelson Mandela, James Baldwin and Occupy Wall Street Five Things Right Now: Eliza RobertsonEliza Robertson‘For me, astrology’s opened this new language and field of understanding.’ Classics How to Write about AfricaBinyavanga Wainaina‘Always end your book with Nelson Mandela saying something about rainbows or renaissances. Because you care.’Chickens and EggsDoris Lessing‘Twenty-one days it takes to hatch eggs, twenty-one nights, and there sits the great fierce hen who had accepted me as protector and jailer for that time.’ Time’s ArrowMartin Amis‘I came rushing upward out of the blackest sleep to find myself surrounded by doctors.’ Outside the WhaleSalman Rushdie‘For a man as truthful, direct, intelligent, passionate and sane as Orwell, ‘politics’ had come to represent the antithesis of his own world-view.’Frankenstein’s MotherDarcey Steinke‘If pain is what makes others real to us, there was not another human being more real to me than my mother.’ Lucky Pierre and the Coldwater FlatRobert Coover‘Projections run riot, mirrors tip and weave, there’s a blur of images like film jumping out of its sprockets.’Martha, MarthaZadie Smith‘From her tiny office on the third floor, Pam Roberts looked through a window and correctly identified the Martha Penk she was waiting for, a shrimpish girl pushing twenty-two, lost down there.’BeachRoberto Bolaño‘I said to myself that maybe he wasn’t about to die.’ Position PaperJohn Ashbery‘No one was killed.’Force VisibilitySolmaz Sharif‘Full or empty / was impossible to see.’ CitizenClaudia Rankine‘Certain moments send adrenaline to the heart, dry out the tongue’
