Granta

In this episode of the Granta podcast, we are joined by Olga Ravn, author of The Employees, My Work and, most recently, The Wax Child. We discuss Tove Ditlevsen, technology, the difference between consciousness and intelligence, as well as her short story ’The High Priestess’, which appeared in Granta 175: Scandinavia. Thomas Meaney is the editor of Granta.

In this episode of the Granta podcast, we speak with Christopher Bollas, a leading figure in contemporary psychoanalytic theory and author of the forthcoming Essential Aloneness and Streams of Consciousness. A wide-ranging interview about his life and work appeared in Granta 174: Therapy. In this further conversation, Bollas reflects on the relationship between psychoanalysis and literature, the significance of daydreams, and whether analysis can speak to the great crises of our time. Thoma...

In this episode of the Granta Podcast we speak to Karan Mahajan, author of Family Planning, The Association of Small Bombs and the forthcoming The Complex. Mahajan’s essay ‘The Killing of a Canadian Sikh’, on an extrajudicial killing in Surrey, Canada, appeared in Granta 173: India. We discuss his forthcoming novel, the Khalistani separatist movement, Salman Rushdie’s influence and the relationship between India and the US. Leo Robson is a cultural journalist whose work has appeared in the...

In this episode of the Granta Podcast we speak to Guadalupe Nettel, author of four novels and three collections of short stories, including the most recent collection The Accidentals. We discuss her novel, Still Born, as well as her stories, ‘The Wanderers’, ‘Divination’ and ‘Bonsai’, as well as her approach to the politics of motherhood, realism and exile in her writing. Leo Robson is a cultural journalist whose work has appeared in the London Review of Books, the New Yorker, and the New L...

In this episode of the Granta Podcast we speak to Tao Lin, the author of ten books, including Leave Society and Taipei. We discuss two of Tao Lin’s recent essays, ‘My Spiritual Evolution’, and ‘Gian’, which appeared in Granta 171: Dead Friends, as well as the effects of psychedelics and the possibilities of reincarnation. Leo Robson is a cultural journalist whose work has appeared in the London Review of Books, the New Yorker, and the New Left Review, among other publications. He is the aut...

In this episode of the Granta Podcast, we speak to Nico Walker, author of the novel Cherry. We discuss Nico Walker’s essay ‘Mucker Play’, published in Granta 170: Winners, which considers American football as a reflection of the country’s violence, the intimate relationship between the military and sport, and how athletes cultivate their public image, from Deion Sanders to Jim Thorpe. Leo Robson is a cultural journalist whose work has appeared in the London Review of Books, the New York...

In this episode of the Granta Podcast, we speak to the film director Wang Xiaoshuai, known for the films Beijing Bicycle (2001) and So Long, My Son (2019). We discuss Wang Xiaoshuai’s thoughts on the porosity between literature and cinema, and the challenges facing independent filmmakers today. Follow these links to subscribe to the podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Leo Robson is a cultural journalist whose work has appeared in the London Review of Books, the New Yorker, and the New...

In this episode of the Granta Podcast, we speak to Alan Hollinghurst, author of seven novels including The Swimming-Pool Library, the Booker Prize-winning The Line of Beauty and Our Evenings, which was published in 2024. We discuss his new novel, writing from the outsider's perspective and cataloguing the chapters of queer life from the mid-century to now. Follow these links to subscribe to the podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Leo Robson is a cultural journalist whose work has ...

In this episode of the Granta podcast we speak to the novelist and journalist Benjamin Kunkel, author of Indecision (2005) and co-founder of the journal n+1. We discuss his short story ‘Prairie Dogs’ (Granta 167: Extraction), his return to writing fiction, involuntarily becoming a ‘Marxist public intellectual’ and being politicised by literature. Follow these links to subscribe to the podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Leo Robson is a cultural journalist whose work has appeared in the...

In this episode of the Granta Podcast, we speak to the novelist and journalist Andrew O’Hagan, author of seven novels and several books of non-fiction. We discuss his short story, ‘The Sensitivity Reader’ (Granta 166: Generations), and the new novel Caledonian Road (2024), both of which explore the value of challenging the established narrative as a journalist, and the capacity for fiction to offer different forms of truth. You can read ‘The Sensitivity Reader’ here. Follow these l...

In this episode of the Granta Podcast, we speak to the novelist Brandon Taylor, author of Real Life (2020) and The Late Americans (2023), about naturalism, the future of fiction, and the connection between Émile Zola and The Sims. We also discuss Taylor’s short story ‘Stalin, Lenin, Robespierre’, which appeared in Granta 166: Generations. You can read ‘Stalin, Lenin, Robespierre’ here. Follow these links to subscribe to the podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Last year Claire-Louise Bennett and editor Josie Mitchell talked about rereading, resisting homogenisation and committing to the process of unravelling. Claire-Louise Bennett is the author of Pond, a collection of short stories, and the 2021 novel Checkout 19. Read an extract of Bennett's novel here.

In 2022 Vanessa Onwuemezi spoke to editor Josie Mitchell about Pina Bausch’s The Rite of Spring, sitting with strangeness and the joy of trying out new sounds on the page. Vanessa Onwuemezi is a writer and poet living in London, her story ‘At the Heart of Things’ won the White Review Short Story Prize in 2019. Her debut story collection, Dark Neighbourhood, was published in 2021 by Fitzcarraldo Editions. Read ‘Cuba’, a short story from Dark Neighbourhood, here.