This issue of Granta explored the theme of fate in all of its beautiful, terrible glory. The introduction warns that the selections to follow “are concerned with fate in its most serious manifestations: love, sexuality, identity, death, illness, religion and war.” The issue included beautiful images of Mexico’s retablos or exvotos, painted on pieces of metal or wood, “which are offerings of gratitude to a Catholic divinity, usually placed in a sanctuary shrine or altar, that condense a charged moment in somebody’s life, perhaps of anguish or even terror, usually […]