Discussion

I enjoyed memoir. I consider your father, and thousands of others, as my 'professional ancestor.' I'm an engineer, you see. I look at the world through an engineer's eyes and seek the "how does that work" of everything.

As with your father, none of my offspring have followed a technical path. As with your father, they are doing (not doing?) so with my love and blessing.

What they do have, as I see in your writing that you have, is an appreciation for the father's way of relating to the world.

Yes, the differences do become gradually accepted ... and appreciated.

Thanks for the glimpse of one of my forebarers and his progeny.

I am perplexed; I don't know if I just read a Borges story (one written by Borges) or a story about Borges imagined by someone imagining being Borges or if I just wrote this story and imagined reading it in a circular library.

The scene of standing between the two blind men reminds me of a Borgesian image: "a candle placed between facing mirrors." But what on earth do I mean by Borgesian?

La medida de la sobriedad.

El sonido
del ave alegre
me llama, en
la eternidad
del cielo
cristalino;
siento silente
el triste recuerdo
que regresa
en el sol,
duermo feliz
en el canto
dichoso.

Francesco Sinibaldi

I have not been to Sierra Leone but I travelled a lot and seen enough about "animal poverty" along with the "human poverty". Very nicely written, that reminded me some of my old days.
Please do continue to write...
Thank you,

A few issues back, the editorial note said there would be no more editorial notes and also, if I'm not misrememembering- no more theme issues. Am glad Granta is still doing themes, and am happy to discover the online, Video Intro to this Work issue. Wouldn't it make sense to transcribe what is said in the video, put it in the beginning of the print issue- and reference the Print version readers to the online website (to see the video and online website)?

Je chante une pensée.

Quand le
souffle du soleil
revient dans
l'école, je chante
une triste
harmonie; et
quand la naturelle
neige invente
l'atmosphère
d'une pensée
perpétuelle,
j'attends le matin...

Francesco Sinibaldi

Subotzky's work leaves no one indifferent.

I like it.

Greetings.

Somehow, this reminded me of the movie, "Taxi Driver"

Think I agree with your end question - 'why should any child, to be fair, view housework as anything but another sentenced element in the long incarceration of childhood?' but the difficulty for mums has always been I think the moral lesson/ life skill of 'picking up after yourself' that you want your children to learn.
But nothing has changed now has it? It's still women vacuuming around the men -though I think for some of us doing other people's dirty work gives us permission to get on with our artistic lives without feeling guilty...

What exactly is being launched?
All I can think of is launching of issue 109 or is it something else? If you have launching event in Saint Louis, MO I plan to attend.

Stealing books here does indeed appear to be literature as sport, but it's often not sport rather obsessive passion for books, especially rare and unaffordable books, that drives the theft. A desire to own a first edition of an author's work, or simply a gorgeously bound and illustrated book of great value.

Like a voice in the morning.

The silent
and beautiful
signal hidden
alone in the
youth of a
morning calls
me, near the
eternity: it's
the delicate leaf
of a loving
profile.

Francesco Sinibaldi

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Brad Watson's story goes from a dead end family to the fullness of life. Great!

An excellent piece. As a near neighbour living in Leicester, I recognise a lot of similarities between the two cities. What Nicola has detailed above seems very prevalent throughout today's Britain.

Looks fab. Have read the piece on book piracy and found it fascinating. Congrats. Happy New Year Granta! Great site too.

La neige rappelle l'éternité.

Dans les
souffles du
nouveau matin,
la neige rappelle
l'éternité; les
ruisseaux de l'amour
décrivent le soleil
qui paraît
solitaire comme
le chant de la
vie dans les
rêves perpétuels,
et une voix
disparaît....

Francesco Sinibaldi

Your an amasing man. And your story gives me strenth. Your like Will Smith in the film-The Pursuit Of Happyness.

La lumière des matins.

La voix des
matins appelle
le sourire des
douces émotions,
comme un rêve
perpétuel, comme
le chant de la
vie qui décrit
tendrement
l'adorable
jeunesse......

Francesco Sinibaldi

Has anyone here ever considered that all of the "book deals" that these politicos do after leaving office is just new age money laundering? I thought about this for a while and I couldn't come up with a better way of legitimizing payoffs than book deals. That's why they are all ghost-written; it's total BS. I need some more money; I know, I think I have an idea for another book. Think about it. You can write any brain drizzle and if someone questions the book's value they just say, "Oh well, you apparently don't share the views of Dear Leader."

There doesn't have to be any real value associated with the scam. Didn't Clinton's book have huge sales figures overseas where it's harder to track whether the books actually moved over the counter? I think somewhere in the Atlantic there's a reef composed of these "books."

Try and think of a better way to launder millions of dollars of payoffs. I can't think of one. Do the math. The book "retails" for $30 to $40 and costs a couple of bucks to print. The graft travels in the form of book purchases. 90% of the money gets through to the publisher/launderer. It beats the hell out of faking commodities trades.

A great story, but one that is eerily similar to Raj Kamal Jha's 'The Blue Bedspread'.

The border of a feeling.

Sensibility is
to watch in
the garden a
luminous light
with a delicate
sound now
recalling
the pleasure...

Francesco Sinibaldi

Oops...I mean "take issue."

This is wonderful. As a devout fan of both authors, I'm delighted with this exchange. However, I have to tak issue with the assertion that "The Good Soldier" is the only one of Ford's books we still read. Many of us hold "Parade's End" in very high esteem, and "The Rash Act" ought to be read by all Ford fans (as well as quality fiction lovers in general). I got my copy second hand; don't know if it's still in print.

Well done, Evie, great to see a new writer win a prize such as this.