Granta #167
148 x 210 mm, 288 pages
London, UK
Editor: Thomas Meaney
Senior designer: Daniela Silva
Production and design director: Sarah Wasley
From Nobel laureates to debut novelists, international translations to investigative journalism, each themed issue of Granta turns the attention of the world’s best writers on to one aspect of the way we live now.
The latest issue is themed ‘Extraction.’ Humanity and its history seem to be defined by the raw materials people have mined, consumed, and cast aside. In this edition of Granta, the writers cover a lot of ground on mines: as the fuel for growing democracies in ancient Greece and early modern England, as contested territory in protesting resource extraction, and even on the digital plane as Bitcoin mining consumes roughly as much energy as the country of Ireland.
Perhaps most importantly, these issues of extraction are coming to a head in this age of green energy transition. As editor Thomas Meaney puts it: ‘The chief paradox of the age is that even the movement to replace fossil fuels requires another round of mining. How to facilitate the extraction that is necessary without continuing on the path of endless accumulation?’ It is less of a resource transition and more of an ‘energy addition.’