Granta #173
145 x 210 mm, 312 pages
London, UK
Editor: Thomas Meaney
Design: Daniela Silva
Publisher: Sigrid Rausing
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.
Issue #173 is dedicated to ‘India’, a theme last explored over a decade ago, preceding the commencement of Narendra Modi’s ‘comparably stable’ leadership. According to editor Thomas Meaney, this stability has had a stifling effect on the literary landscape. As such, whilst the issue platforms ‘extraordinary work across all genres, almost all of it runs against the grain of the broader culture’.
Inside, Sujatha Gilda’s ‘I am my mother’s older brother’ ruminates on the social, cultural and generational gap that opened up between her and her mother after her migration to America, reflecting on ageing and autonomy in contemporary India. Also of note this issue, early-days Granta contributor Salman Rushdie is interviewed by Meaney. Their conversation spans the non-consensual publishing of an excerpt of Rushdie’s ‘Midnight’s Children’ in issue three, as well as his trouble with the Indian government and writing as an outlet to reconnect with the place he was raised. The prose and conversations featured across the issue are both vivid and insightful, bridging the personal and the political.
Further contributors include the likes of Vivek Shanbhag, Devika Rege, Umesh Solanki, Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Srinath Perur, Karan Mahajan, Amit Chaudhuri, Ruchir Joshi, Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, plus more.