Granta’s Deputy Editor Ellah Allfrey interviewed author Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o at New Beacon Books about his childhood in rural Kenya and his piece in the new Granta – an extract of upcoming memoir Dreams in a Time of War.
Photograph © UCI UC Irvine
Granta’s Deputy Editor Ellah Allfrey interviewed author Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o at New Beacon Books about his childhood in rural Kenya and his piece in the new Granta – an extract of upcoming memoir Dreams in a Time of War.
Photograph © UCI UC Irvine
‘We meet at various points in the great swathes of the past that neither of us were alive to witness.’
Allen Bratton on a daytrip to a castle with his older boyfriend.
‘Listening to three white poets, whom I suspect are academics, talk about the state of poetry.’
Oluwaseun Olayiwola eavesdrops on an older generation.
‘I’d been dubious about his company at first.’
Sarah Moss on watching Shakespeare with her twelve-year-old son.
‘She didn’t trust us because, to her, tenants were like children.’
Kate Zambreno on negotiating with her older landlady.
‘A moment now swallowed in embarrassment, I asked a question only a young person might ask an older one.’
Lynne Tillman on trying to understand what makes a generation.
‘I went to Enid’s funeral and there was a mole on the coffin and it seemed / aware of us but unconcerned.’
Two poems by Fee Griffin.
‘You live at the track, your life is full.’
An excerpt from Kathryn Scanlan’s new work of fiction, Kick the Latch.
‘This made me big thirteen, the type to be able to drink mead on Epitaph Day if I wanted.’
A story by Okwiri Oduor.
A Kenyan journalist falls in love with the Tizita, popularly called Ethiopian blues, in this extract from Mũkoma Wa Ngũgĩ’s new novel.
‘Graham is telling the woman that he is Orientating you. The woman in the blue cardigan looks at you and nods very solemnly.’
A story from Ben Pester’s Am I in the Right Place, available now from Boiler House Press.
‘My father can speak just fine. Nonetheless, he does not speak to me; nor I to him.’
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