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 […]
The Larger Risk
I’ve long depended on Granta to push me out of my comfort zone and have always loved the format. It’s a quarterly collection of new writing — fiction, nonfiction, poetry — with some amazing photojournalism thrown in as well. I’m consistently drawn to the idea of a program or publication striving to put many different lenses on a single theme. Although some themes are more relatable than others — for many readers, Granta‘s “Mothers” issue may be slightly more accessible than, say, the “Pakistan” issue — I always enjoy each issue. A […]
A Last Natural Wilderness
Milan Kundera wrote “Beauty is a world betrayed… [t]he only way we can encounter it is if its persecutors have overlooked it somewhere.” You know that feeling of discovering something beautiful? Something, perhaps, overlooked? In the case of a book, chances are that you didn’t really “discover” it, not in any real sense of the word. Someone else discovered it, and then a lot of other people discovered it too – after all, there it is, printed and bound and sitting in your lap. But maybe you […]