GRANTA

PHOTOGRAPHY COMPETITION!

Competition: In this issue of Granta, Claire Shea brings us an image of a post-it note memorial in Peckham, Anthony Rush captures the mist lifting over a disused barracks in Omagh and here Justin Coombes takes us on a journey along Regents Canal, through the eyes of a kingfisher. What does your Britain look like? We’d love to see this country we call home from your perspective. Send us pictures of your Britain for a chance to be showcased by Granta online. Entries should be posted directly to our Tumblr. The top three will be chosen by Francesca Sears and Adrian Evans of Panos Pictures and published on granta.com and our associated social media. The three winners will also receive a copy of Granta 119: Britain. Competition closes on 14 June. By submitting your work you are thereby granting permission for it to be published, if selected by the judges.

Oak by Jamie McKendrick

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Pico Iyer revisits Oxford

Britain produced all kinds of brilliant, talented and original individuals, I thought, but the best Brits were precisely the ones who could never live in Britain.

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Extract from ‘Stevenage’ in Britain by Gary Younge

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A.L. Kennedy’s love letter to London’s theatres

For me, London’s theatres were where I really began to change into someone who could … actually be a writer, make stories, build books, breathe through actors and govern their motions.

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Interview with Rajesh Parameswaran

I think you could say I am writing against the ‘standard immigrant narrative’ at times, but perhaps you could also say I am writing against the standard tiger narrative

Solitude by Huang Canran

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Mo Yan on the Granta Podcast

‘China has progressed but progress itself brings up many issues, for instance environmental issues and the decline in high moral standards.’

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A letter from Shen Congwen

I can hear the sound of drums far away. Could I be going mad again?

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Petty Thief - fiction by Ai Yi

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Flying Towards a Country of Rain by Wang Yin

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Dutch Landscapes by Mishka Henner

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Toby Litt on the reader and technology

The basic plots of Western Literature depend on separation by distance – Odysseus separated from Penelope; the Odyssey doesn’t exist if Odysseus can catch an easyJet flight home…

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Interview with Nathan Englander

The challenge and fun of writing stories is engaging with something that seems impossible to execute

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The Day Etta Died by John Burnside

trees lit with frost outside and cherry-coloured
street lamps round the playground at Our Lady’s,

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