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 appeared in the London Review of Books, the New Yorker, and the New Left Review. Josie Mitchell is senior editor at Granta. 

In this episode of the Granta Podcast, we speak to the novelist and essayist Rachel Kushner, author of the books The Mars Room, The Flamethrowers, Telex from Cuba and The Hard Crowd. Her latest novel, Creation Lake, will be published in September 2024.We discuss her story, ‘The True Depth of a Cave’, which appeared in Granta 167: Extraction, as well as the mysteries of prehistory and the variance between abstract and mimetic art in fiction. 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 Left Review. Josie Mitchell is senior editor at Granta. 

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 London Review of Books, the New Yorker, and the New Left Review. Josie Mitchell is senior editor at Granta. 

In this episode of the Granta Podcast, we speak to the novelist Sheila Heti, author of the books How Should a Person Be?, Motherhood and Pure Colour. Her latest book, Alphabetical Diaries, was published in 2024.We discuss her new book, along with her interview with the academic Phyllis Rose that appeared in Granta 166: Generations. You can find all of Heti's contributions to the magazine here.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 Left Review. Josie Mitchell is senior editor at Granta. 

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 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 Left Review, among other publications. His first novel will be published in 2024.Josie Mitchell is online editor at Granta. 

In this episode of the Granta Podcast, we speak to the novelist and critic Lauren Oyler, author of No Judgement (2024) and Fake Accounts (2024), about living in Berlin, the boundary between our private and public selves, and the trajectory of autofiction. We also discuss Oyler’s essay, ‘Last Week at Marienbad’, which appeared in Granta 165: Deutschland. You can read ‘Last Week at Marienbad’ here.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 Left Review, among other publications. His first novel will be published in 2024. Josie Mitchell is online editor at Granta. 

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.

In 2022 Jamaica Kincaid spoke to editor Josie Mitchell about childhood, the concept of memory and her early love of Paradise Lost.Jamaica Kincaid grew up on the island of Antigua. She began writing for the New Yorker and went on to publish many books, including the novel Annie John and the collection of stories At the Bottom of the River. A number of her books have recently been reissued, or are forthcoming, from Picador in the UK.

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 Lynne Tillman and editor Josie Mitchell discussed the afterlife of novels, haunted houses and the sexual revolution. Lynne Tillman is the author of many books, including the 2006 novel American Genius: A Comedy and the 2014 essay collection, What Would Lynne Tillman Do?  Two of Tillman’s early works are now published in the UK by Peninsula Press: Weird Fucks and Haunted Houses.Read an excerpt from Tillman’s memoir Mothercare 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.  

In 2022 Anthony Anaxagorou and editor Josie Mitchell talked about heritage, national identity and poetry that cannot keep still.Anthony is the author of several volumes of poetry, non-fiction and a collection of short stories. His latest book, Heritage Aesthetics, draws on family migratory histories between Cyprus and the UK to interrogate patriarchy, xenophobia and national divides.Purchase a copy of Anthony Anaxagorou’s new poetry collection, Heritage Aesthetics, here. You can also read poems from his 2019 collection, After the Formalities, here. 

In 2022 Ayanna Lloyd Banwo spoke to editor Josie Mitchell about a fear of forgetting, Lapeyrouse Cemetery and our cultural traditions around death.Ayanna Lloyd Banwo is a writer from Trinidad and Tobago currently living in London. Her debut novel When We Were Birds was named one of the Observer’s Best Debuts of 2022 and one of the Economist’s Best Books of 2022.Read an excerpt from When We Were Birds here.

In 2022 Mary Gaitskill talked to editor Josie Mitchell about her fascination with the idea of hell, returning to past creative work and writing characters with different experiences from her own.Mary Gaitskill is the author of Bad Behavior; Two Girls, Fat and Thin; Because They Wanted To; Veronica; Don’t Cry; The Mare; Somebody with a Little Hammer; and This is Pleasure. Her new book, The Devil’s Treasure, is a hybrid work of criticism, memoir and mythography.Her essay ‘Lost Cat’, first published in Granta 107, is available to read here.

In 2021 Eula Biss talked to editor Josie Mitchell on the distortions of capital, bartering with Pokémon cards and the conditions necessary for creativity. Eula Biss is the author of four books, including On Immunity and Notes from No Man’s Land. Her most recent book, Having and Being Had, looks at our beliefs about class and owning property. Read an excerpt from Having and Being Had on granta.com. 

Last year Stephanie Sy-Quia spoke to online editor Josie Mitchell about modern cathedrals, telling her grandmothers’ stories and the impulse to categorise. Stephanie Sy-Quia’s debut poetry collection Amnion was selected as a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. Her writing has appeared in the FT Weekend, the TLS, the Economist, the Spectator and TANK magazine, and has twice been shortlisted for the FT Bodley Head Essay Prize. You can read an excerpt from Amnion on granta.com. 

Last year Tice Cin spoke to Josie Mitchell about poetry, brutalist architecture and returning home. Tice Cin is an interdisciplinary artist from north London. Her debut novel Keeping the House has been longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize. A DJ and music producer, she also hosts Homing Tunes, a show on Threads Radio. Get a copy of Keeping the House.  Read ‘Census’, a poem by Gboyega Odubanjo, on granta.com.

In 2021 Anuk Arudpragasam spoke to Josie Mitchell about the influence of Thomas Bernhard, writing in the wake of war and his relationship to the English language. Arudpragasam was born in Colombo and currently lives between Sri Lanka and India. His debut novel, The Story of a Brief Marriage, won the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, and was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize. His second book, A Passage North, was since shortlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize.Read an excerpt from A Passage North at granta.com. 

Back in the early summer of 2020, the writer Kathryn Scanlan joined Josie Mitchell to talk about her story collection, The Dominant Animal. They discussed her precarious worlds, the drama of the sentence and working with the writer and editor Diane Williams.  ‘Fable’, a story taken from The Dominant Animal , is available to read here. 

Joanna Kavenna joins Josie Mitchell to discuss Zed – a sci-fi dystopia exploring our fears about the psychological cost of surveillance capitalism. Early in 2020, newly under lockdown, they discussed the psychic threat posed by today’s tech companies, the blurring of citizen and consumer, and the early optimism of cyberspace. You can read an excerpt from the novel on our website for free, and subscribers can also read ‘The Perfect Companion’, an AI short story that journeys further into the world of Zed. 

Caleb Klaces joins Josie Mitchell to talk about about his debut novel, Fatherhood – his poet’s account of becoming a father.Back at the beginning of the UK lockdown, they discussed parenting your kids at home, and talked about the expectations placed on fathers and the sense of community on offer to them.You can find poetry and short fiction by Caleb on our website.

Sophie Mackintosh speaks to editor Josie Mitchell about her new novel, Blue Ticket. They talk about what it means to be pregnancy-adjacent, the bloodthirsty aspects of motherhood, and letting the body have what it wants. You can find more fiction by Sophie Mackintosh on Granta.com, including ‘The Last Rite of My Body’ and ‘The Weak Spot’.

Ottessa Moshfegh joined Josie Mitchell to talk about about her novel, Death in Her Name.They discuss the ‘perfect storm’ trapping us inside with our Zoom-ready devices, the propaganda in the air, and the psychological effects of isolation on the elderly narrator of her novel.You can read an excerpt from Death In Her Name here. As well as more fiction from Ottessa on our website and in print.

Carmen Maria Machado discusses her new memoir, In the Dream House, with Josie Mitchell. They discuss memory as architecture, formal experimentation, and making space for queer narrative. Carmen is the author of Her Body and Other Parties. You can read more of her work, including the new story ‘The Lost Performance of the High Priestess of the Temple of Horror’, from our Winter 2020 issue, here. 

Josie Mitchell talks to Momtaza Mehri about her pamphlet, Doing the Most with the Least, out with Goldsmiths Shorts. They discuss the value of self-interrogation, the significance of the Black Arts Movement and the limits to checking your privilege. You can read Momtaza’s poetry and essays on our website: https://granta.com/contributor/momtaza-mehri/And her recent essay in the Guardian, ‘Anti-racism requires so much more than checking your privilege’: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/07/anti-racism-checking-privilege-anti-blackness

Jenny Offill, author of Dept. of Speculation, talks to editor Josie Mitchell about her new novel, Weather. They discuss pre-apocalypse warnings, the doomers among us and the draws of prepper culture in a world gone mad. You can read an interview between Jenny and Mark O’Connell, author of Notes from an Apocalypse, on our website: https://granta.com/in-conversation-oconnell-offill/ 

Sandra Newman is the author of the novels The Only Good Thing Anyone Has Ever Done, Cake, The Country of Ice Cream Star and four non-fiction books including the memoir Changeling. Her most recent novel The Heavens is published by Granta Books. She spoke to Lucy Diver about friendship, love, hope and how to write like an Elizabethan.

Maureen N. McLane reads from her book My Poets. My Poets begins its first chapter ‘proem, in the form of a Q&A’, which is what you hear at the beginning of the recording. The second part of the recording is from ‘My Elizabeth Bishop / My Gertrude Stein’, the fourth chapter in the book,

Kamila Shamsie is the author of seven novels and one book of non-fiction. Among many other accolades, Kamila is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and in 2013 was named a Granta Best of Young British Novelist. She joined us in the Granta offices for an interview about her new novel Home Fire, published by Bloomsbury. Home Fire was longlisted for the 2017 Man Booker Prize.

In this episode of the Granta podcast, Max Porter, author of Grief is the Thing with Feathers reads ‘False Blood’ by Will Self. Diagnosed with a rare blood condition, Self attends weekly ‘venesections’ (the modern-day equivalent of bloodletting) which inspire morbid thoughts on addiction and disease. The story can be found in full on our website: https://granta.com/false-blood/ Will Self is the author of numerous novels, most recently Phone. In 1993 he was named as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists. Max Porter is the author of Grief is the Thing With Feathers, which was shortlisted for the 2015 Guardian First Book Award and the 2015 Goldsmiths Prize, and won the 2016 International Dylan Thomas Prize.

In this episode of the Granta podcast, Margo Jefferson, author of Negroland, reads Kathleen Collins’s short story, ‘The Uncle’, taken from the collection Whatever Happened to Interracial Love? Kathleen Collins was a pioneer African-American playwright, film-maker, civil rights activist and educator. You can read more work by Kathleen Collins on our website: granta.com/whatever-happened-to-interracial-love/

In this episode of the Granta podcast, Josie Mitchell speaks with Andrea Stuart about her essay ‘Travels in Pornland’. They discuss the value of feminist porn, the importance of counter narratives and the challenges faced by feminist pornographers. The essay was first published in August 2016. You can read the essay in full on our website: https://granta.com/travels-in-pornland/

Luke Neima talks to George Saunders about his first novel, Lincoln in the Bardo. They discuss the pressures on Abraham Lincoln during the civil war, the art of creating distinctive historical voices, verbal improv and writing the afterlife.

In this edition of the Granta podcast, editor Luke Neima talks to Diane Williams, the author of eight books of fiction and founder and editor of the distinguished literary annual NOON. Diane reads from her latest book, Fine, Fine, Fine, Fine, Fine, and discusses her approaches to writing and editing, the gatekeepers of literary publication and stitching.

Rosalind Porter reads Carmen Maria Machado’s ‘The Husband Stitch’. The story was first published in 2015, and went on to be nominated for the Nebula and Shirley Jackson Award.Carmen Maria Machado’s debut short story collection, Her Body and Other Parties, is out with Graywolf Press.

In this edition of the Granta Podcast, editor Ka Bradley speaks with Madeleine Thien about her book, Do Not Say We Have Nothing, which has recently been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. They talk about translating the sensation of music for a reader, the importance of writing about women of colour, and the Chinese conceptual framework of time.

In this edition of the Granta podcast we speak to Astrid Alben, who reads a selection from her book of poetry Plainspeak, discusses her work as a translator and as an editor of the interdisciplinary journal Pars, shares a poem by Valérie Rouzeau – translated from the French by Susan Wicks – and explains how she develops her poetic alter ego.

In our latest podcast, Joanna Walsh discusses the Irish Writing Boom with Sarah Davis-Goff of Tramp Press; Susan Tomaselli, editor of Gorse Journal; and Amy Herron of the Irish Writers' Centre. They touch on the culture and history of Ireland’s literary journals; short story culture; the fight against marketing departments and the work of fostering literary innovation.

Sally Rooney and Joanna Walsh: The Granta Podcast, Ep. 80 by Granta Magazine

Ireland has one of the world's most distinguished literary traditions. In Granta 135: New Irish Writing, we showcase contemporary Irish fiction, memoir, poetry and photography.For the launch of the issue, Granta and Foyles hosted Peggy Hughes, Sally Rooney, Lucy Caldwell and Sara Baume in a discussion about their work, the state of Irish writing and the place of technology in literature. Audio production by Adam Barr.

Last year we celebrated the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, but the legacy of war and communism lives on in eastern Europe. In the new issue of Granta – No Man’s Land – Peter Pomerantsev writes about propaganda in Ukraine’s Donbas region, where pro-Russian activists battle with pro-Ukrainian, pro-democracy activists and Ukrainian nationalists, whilst Philip Ó Ceallaigh tells the devastating story of the Communist destruction of Old Bucharest. They joined us for the launch of the new issue at the Frontline Club in London.Both writers encounter people who are longing for a strong leader to bring back security and pride. They discussed whether, following the challenges to democratic structures in Russia, Hungary, and most recently Poland, eastern Europe’s new democracies are at risk.Chaired by author and journalist Oliver Bullough, who lived and worked in Russia from 1999 – 2006. He is author of two books about Russian history and politics: The Last Man in Russia and Let Our Fame Be Great.Peter Pomerantsev is the author of Nothing is True and Nothing is Possible, Adventures in Modern Russia. He is a senior fellow at the Legatum Institute, where he runs a project on contemporary propaganda and how to deal with it. Philip Ó Ceallaigh is the author of two collections of short stories, Notes from a Turkish Whorehouse and The Pleasant Light of Day. At present he is working on a book about the Jewish world of Eastern Europe and its destruction, as witnessed by its writers. Audio production by Adam Barr.

Neel Mukherjee and Patrick deWitt discuss their books, Undermajordomo Minor and The Lives of Others, subconscious influence, the power of the exclamation mark and love.

Hiromi Kawakami is a novelist, haiku poet, literary critic and essayist. Her books include 'Manazuru, Pasuta mashiin yūrei' ('Pasta Machine Ghosts') and 'Sensei no kaban' ('The Briefcase'), published as 'Strange Weather in Tokyo' by Portobello Books in the UK. She was awarded the 1996 Akutagawa Prize for 'Hebi o fumu' (Tread on a Snake).Here, she talks to Granta Books editor Anne Meadows on her essay for Granta 127: Japan, the presence of death in her work and the influence of Gabriel García Márquez, with interpretation by Asa Yoneda.'I never really thought about death or mortality, but coming to terms with this diagnosis, or the probability of this diagnosis, I realised that, medically speaking, death can always be thought of not as a certainty, but as a probability. Looking back, I never was aware of feeling that close to death, but actually if you think about it, just living every day there is a very small but definitely existing chance of death, whatever you're doing, wherever you are.' Image courtesy of Ryoko Uyama

Ruth Ozeki is the author of 'My Year of Meats', 'All Over Creation' and 'A Tale for the Time Being', which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. For Granta’s Japan issue, she wrote an essay on her grandfather: about a mysterious photograph she has of him and about the ways she feels linked to him across time.In the latest Granta podcast, she reads from the piece and discusses it alongside her latest novel, 'A Tale for the Time Being', touching on haiku, feminist Buddhist nuns, memory, the idea of cultural gyres and why and how she wrote herself into her book.'I'm mixed race, I'm kind of like the meeting point between these two cultures and these two histories. And somehow that is in my DNA, and growing up mixed race, it always did feel like there was a tension there between the two halves. And I never was quite sure who I was or who I was supposed to be... it seemed very odd and unstable to be who I was.'

In the latest Granta podcast, Mark Gevisser and Jonny Steinberg discuss recent South African history, their personal relationship to Johannesburg, and their personal relationship to a divided city. Mark Gevisser is the author of 'A Legacy of Liberation: Thabo Mbeki and the Future of the South African Dream', published by Palgrave Macmillan in the UK, and by Jonathan Ball in South Africa under the title, 'Thabo Mbeki: The Dream Deferred'. His latest book, 'Dispatcher', is published by Granta. Jonny Steinberg is the author of several books about South Africa's transition to democracy. His next book, 'A Man of Good Hope', will be published in January 2015. He teaches African Studies and Criminology at the University of Oxford.‘Johannesburg is such an enormously contradictory place, it’s a place of great fear it’s a place of high walls and electric fences, and yet it is also a place of wall-lessness in such profound ways… it is a very mercurial place, it’s of great fear and yet extraordinary energy.’

Lindsey Hilsum is International Editor of Channel Four News and the author of ‘Sandstorm: Libya in the Time of Revolution’.In 1994 she was the only English-speaking Foreign Correspondent working in Rwanda when the genocide began. Her essay in the latest issue of Granta tells of her return to the country 19 years after the conflict.Here we talk about her time in Rwanda, Libya and how countries can repair in the aftermath of war. The podcast begins with Lindsey reading from her essay ‘The Rainy Season’, in Granta 125: After the War.‘I think that for me there were a lot of things that were unresolved which I tried to resolve by going back and by writing, but maybe I have to accept that some things will never be resolved.’

In the latest Granta podcast, we’re joined by Juan Pablo Villalobos, author of 'Down the Rabbit Hole', which was nominated for the 2011 Guardian First Book Award and, most recently, 'Quesadillas'.Here, Villalobos talks about parodying Mexican identity, the difficulty of translation and class struggle in Mexico. ‘The worst thing wasn’t being poor; the worst thing was having no idea of the things you can do with money.’

Eleanor Catton’s debut novel, The Rehearsal, was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award, and the Dylan Thomas Prize, longlisted for The Orange Prize and received a Betty Task award. Her second novel, The Luminaries, has been shortlisted for the 2013 Man Booker prize. Here, Granta Books editor Anne Meadows talks to Catton about opium sand gold, the ideas of the modern and the archaic, whether a good author can also be a sadist, and what it means to be a New Zealand writer today. ‘I am very firm in the belief that literature is not a competitive sport, we’re all doing the same thing, and hopefully for similar reasons.’

Granta speaks to Lina Wolff, author of the story collection 'Många människor dör som du' ('Many Pepole Die Like You') and the novel 'Bret Easton Ellis och de andra hundarna' ('Bret Easton Ellis and the Other Dogs'). Wolff writes in Swedish, and her story in the issue is based in Spain. Here she discusses the tension she felt between a ‘Spanishness’ and ‘Swedishness’, when writing and between a rational way of being and a magical way of thinking. She also discusses Lorca, Dante, literary travellers and their guides and the idea of irrationality and the artistic temperament. ‘I think in the beginning it was a crisis. I started to write because I felt the need to fit in, and not be an outsider... I have felt bound to an outsideness and an otherness.’ Image © Håkan Sandbring. 

In the latest Granta podcast, Saskia Vogel speaks to Sonia Faleiro, a contributor to the Travel issue and a reporter. Faleiro is the author of a book of fiction, The Girl, and one book of non-fiction, Beautiful Thing: Inside the Secret World of Bombay’s Dance Bars. She talks about how her gender influences her work and how she started out as a reporter. She also discusses the way we tell stories about women who use their bodies in to earn a living, Bombay’s complex sex industry and the idea of marginalized narratives.‘How we perceive people eventually influences what rights we think they deserve to be given, when there is actually no question of endowing someone with rights; you either have them or you don’t.’

In the latest Granta podcast, Rachael Allen speaks to travel writer Robert Macfarlane. Macfarlane is the author of Mountains of the Mind, The Wild Places and most recently, The Old Ways. Macfarlane talks about ‘Underland’, his essay in Granta 124: Travel, which sees him exploring the underground caves of Karst country, and the different approaches writers take to show landscape through language. ‘When you're dealing with a geological context,’ says Macfarlane ‘its age exceeds your knowing, exceeds your comprehension. Deep time is dizzying and vertiginous.’

In the latest Granta podcast, Yuka Igarashi speaks to writer, journalist and activist Rebecca Solnit. Solnit is the author of numerous books about art, landscape, ecology and politics. They include A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster; A Field Guide to Getting Lost; Wanderlust: A History of Walking; Infinite City, a book of 22 maps with nearly 30 collaborators; and, most recently The Faraway Nearby, published this June. Solnit discusses how her new book interweaves personal narratives about family and illness with stories about Mary Shelley and Che Guevara. We also talk about her interest in paradoxes and her momentary connection to Beyonce.

In the latest Granta podcast, Yuka Igarashi talks to A.M. Homes, the recipient of this year’s Women’s Prize for Fiction for May We Be Forgiven. Homes is the author of the novels This Book Will Save Your Life, Music for Torching, The End of Alice, In a Country of Mothers and Jack; the story collections The Safety of Objects and Things You Should Know; and the memoir The Mistress’s Daughter (Granta Books). As a followup to an interview when May We Be Forgiven was published, they spoke about what winning the prize means to her. They also discussed family and the American Dream as themes in her book, why the Korean translation of one of her novels comes with a coupon for Dunkin Donuts, and the influence that her writing teacher Grace Paley had on her work and life.

On the latest Granta podcast we hear from George Saunders. One of the finest, funniest writers of his generation, he writes stories that pulse with outsized heart, crackle with the ad-speak and eek out the human story from the lives of theme-park workers and the subjects of strange drug tests that enhance libido and eloquence. His books include CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, In Persuasion Nation, Pastoralia and most recently Tenth of December. He has also published a book of essays, The Braindead Megaphone. Here he spoke to online editor Ted Hodgkinson about allowing his characters access to goodness, why he wants to avoid ‘auto-dark’ in his stories, how the death of David Foster Wallace affected his writing and closing the gap between art and life.

The final in our series of podcasts featuring the Best of Young British Novelists 4, we hear from Tahmima Anam. Anam is the author of the Bengal Trilogy, which chronicles three generations of the Haque family from the Bangladesh war of independence to the present day. Her debut novel, A Golden Age, was awarded the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book. It was followed in 2011 by The Good Muslim. ‘Anwar Gets Everything’, in the issue, is an excerpt from the final instalment of the trilogy, Shipbreaker, published in 2014 by Canongate in the UK and HarperCollins in the US. Here she spoke to Saskia Vogel about making a home in London and migration.

Continuing our series of podcasts on the Best of Young British Novelists 4, we hear from Steven Hall. Born in Derbyshire, Hall’s first novel, The Raw Shark Texts, won the Borders Original Voices Award and the Somerset Maugham Award, and has been translated into twenty-nine languages. ‘Spring’ and ‘Autumn’, in the issue, are excerpts from his upcoming second novel, The End of Endings. Here he spoke to online editor Ted Hodgkinson about how the internet is, to his mind, disturbing the possibility of a novel with a single continuous narrative thread, writing from memory and the significance of Ian the cat in his first novel.

Continuing our series of podcasts on the Best of Young British Novelists 4, we hear from Jenni Fagan. Fagan’s critically acclaimed debut novel, The Panopticon, was published in 2012 and named one of the Waterstones Eleven, a selection of the best fiction debuts of the year. Her poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and her collection The Dead Queen of Bohemia was named 3:AM magazine’s Poetry Book of the Year. She holds an MA in creative writing from Royal Holloway, University of London, and currently lives in a coastal village in Scotland. ‘Zephyrs’, in the issue, is an excerpt from her novel in progress. Here she speaks with Granta’s Ellah Allfrey about the care system, how a library van nurtured her love of reading from a young age and her days in a band.

Continuing our Best of Young British Novelists we hear from Kamila Shamsie. Shamsie is the author of five novels. The first, In the City by the Sea, was published by Granta Books in 1998 and shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize. Her most recent novel, Burnt Shadows, was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction and translated into more than twenty languages. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a trustee of English PEN and a member of the Authors Cricket Club. ‘Vipers’, in the issue, is an excerpt from a forthcoming novel. Here she talks to John Freeman about the themes of love and war in her work, moving between her native Karachi and London where she lives now, her choice to become a UK citizen and how her uncle directed the first episode of Doctor Who.

Ross Raisin’s first novel, God’s Own Country, about a disturbed adolescent living in the Yorkshire Dales, won him the 2009 Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, the Guardian First Book Award, a Betty Trask Award and numerous other prizes. His second novel, Waterline, about a former shipbuilder grieving the death of his wife in Glasgow, was published to critical acclaim in 2011. His short stories have been published in Prospect, Esquire, Dazed & Confused, the Sunday Times, on BBC Radio 3 and in Granta. In this podcast, he spoke to Yuka Igarashi about how he evokes place and inhabits characters in his writing; the difference between his approaches to short stories and novels; and what it means to him to be part of the Best Young British Novelist list. He also discusses his work on a new novel, which began as a story published in Granta: Britain.

Continuing a series of podcasts featuring our Best of Young British Novelists, today we bring you an interview with Nadifa Mohamed. Mohamed was born in Somalia and moved to Britain in 1986. Here she spoke to online editor Ted Hodgkinson about how her first novel, Black Mamba Boy (which won the Betty Trask Award), was inspired by her father’s journey to the UK from Somalia, and how that process brought them closer together. They also spoke about her arrival from Somalia, growing up in Tooting and how she believed from a young age that cats were spies for the government. ‘Filsan’, in the issue, is an excerpt from her new novel, The Orchard of Lost Souls, forthcoming from Simon & Schuster in the UK and Farrar, Straus and Giroux in the US. You can also watch a specially commissioned short film in which Mohamed visits Shepherd’s Bush Market and explains why she wants to be the griot of London.

Continuing a series of podcasts featuring our Best of Young British Novelists, today we bring you an interview with Sunjeev Sahota. Sahota was born in Derby and currently lives in Leeds with his wife and daughter. His first novel, Ours are the Streets, was published in 2011. ‘Arrivals’, in the issue, is an excerpt from The Year of the Runaways, his unfinished second novel, forthcoming from Picador. Here Sahota spoke to Ellah Allfrey about his work, finding Midnight’s Children in an airport bookshop and having a day job.

Benjamin Markovits is the author of six books: The Syme Papers, Either Side of Winter and Playing Days as well as a trilogy on the life of Lord Byron — Imposture, A Quiet Adjustment, and Childish Loves. He is also the only Granta Best of Young Novelists who is known to be able to dunk. In this podcast with Yuka Igarashi, he discusses his time playing minor-league basketball for a team in southern Germany, and the ways in which this and his other experiences inform his work as a writer. He also talks about his new novel, extracted in the issue, about a group of university friends who get involved in a scheme to regenerate Detroit.

In our latest instalment of podcasts featuring our Best of Young British Novelists, we speak to Helen Oyeyemi. Oyeyemi is the author of The Icarus Girl and The Opposite House. Her third novel, White is for Witching, was awarded a 2010 Somerset Maugham Award, and her fourth, Mr Fox, won the 2012 Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation Award. ‘Boy, Snow, Bird’, in the issue, is an excerpt from a new novel of the same title, published in 2014 by Picador in the UK and Riverhead in the US. Here Oyeyemi spoke to online editor Ted Hodgkinson about the joys of writing from a male perspective, the role of magic in her work, some of her influences from Alfred Hitchcock to Jeanette Winterson and how as a young girl she would write alternate endings in the margins of the classics.

Our latest instalment of podcasts for our Best of Young British Novelist features Adam Thirlwell. Thirlwell is the author of the novels Politics and The Escape, the novella Kapow!, and a project with international novels that includes an essay-book, Miss Herbert and a compendium of translations edited for McSweeney’s. He was selected as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists back in 2003. Here she spoke to Granta’s Yuka Igarashi about sex, history, translation, using tempo in novels and how his writing has evolved over the past decade.

In our latest installment of podcasts featuring our Best of Young British Novelists, we speak to Sarah Hall. Hall was born in Cumbria and lives in Norwich. She is the multiple-prize-winning author of four novels: Haweswater, The Electric Michelangelo, The Carhullan Army (published in the US as Daughters of the North) and How to Paint a Dead Man; a collection of short stories, The Beautiful Indifference, original radio dramas and poetry. Here she spoke to Granta’s Saskia Vogel about wolves, tattoos and the wilds of Cumbria.

Continuing a series of podcasts featuring our Best of Young British Novelists, today we bring you an interview with Xiaolu Guo. Guo studied at the Beijing Film Academy and received her MA from the National Film School in London. She has published seven novels in both English and Chinese. A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction. Her other novels include UFO in Her Eyes and 20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth. She directed the award-winning films, She, a Chinese and Once Upon a Time Proletrian. 'Interim Zone', in the issue, is an excerpt from I Am China, her new novel forthcoming from Chatto & Windus in the UK. Here she spoke to deputy editor Ellah Allfrey about her experience of growing up in rural China, her move to writing in English and becoming an East Ender.

Continuing a series of podcasts featuring our Best of Young British Novelists, today we bring you an interview with David Szalay. Szalay was born in Canada; his family moved to the UK soon after, and he has lived here ever since. He has published three novels: London and the South-East, The Innocent and Spring. He is currently working on a number of new projects –‘Europa’, which appears in the issue, is an excerpt from one of these. He spoke to online editor Ted Hodgkinson about how spending time in Hungary paradoxically makes it easier to write about London, his years trying to live off betting on horses and how memory informs his work.

Continuing a series of podcasts featuring our Best of Young British Novelists, today we bring you an interview with Joanna Kavenna. Kavenna grew up in various parts of Britain and has also lived in the US, France, Germany, Scandinavia and the Baltic States. She is the author of three novels: Inglorious, The Birth of Love and Come to the Edge, and one work of non-fiction, The Ice Museum. In 2008 she was awarded the Orange Prize for New Writing. ‘Tomorrow’, which appears in the issue, is an excerpt from a forthcoming novel. Here she spoke to deputy editor Ellah Allfrey about her incurable wander-lust, genre-hopping and why Nietzsche was wrong about the ordinary man.

In the latest Granta Podcast we bring you an interview with Best of Young British Novelist, Naomi Alderman. Described by Rachel Seiffert as ‘someone who can do funny’, Alderman is the author of three novels: Disobedience, The Lessons and The Liars’ Gospel. She writes and designs computer games and is co-creator of Zombies, Run!, the best-selling iPhone fitness game and audio adventure. A professor of creative writing at Bath Spa University, she has been paired with Margaret Atwood in the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative. Here, Alderman speaks to deputy editor Ellah Allfrey about her engagement with the world around her and the joys of writing to genre. ‘Soon and in Our Days’, which is published in the issue, is a new story.

Continuing a series of podcasts featuring our Best of Young British Novelists, today we bring you an interview with Taiye Selasi. Selasi was born in London to Nigerian and Ghanaian parents. She made her fiction debut in Granta in 2011 with ‘The Sex Lives of African Girls’, which was selected for Best American Short Stories in 2012. Her first novel, Ghana Must Go, was published in March 2013. Here she spoke to deputy editor Ellah Allfrey about her mother’s garden, Rachmaninov and learning to speak Italian.

Continuing a series of podcasts on our Best of Young British Novelists 4, today we bring you an interview with Evie Wyld. Wyld’s first novel, After the Fire, A Still Small Voice, which follows the lives of two men, Frank and Leon, who live decades apart but on the same wild coastline in Queensland, Australia, and was shortlisted for numerous awards and won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and a Betty Trask Award. Her second novel All the Birds, Singing, is excerpted in the issue. Here Wyld talks to online editor Ted Hodgkinson about why living in Peckham makes it easier to write about rural Australia, how memory informs her stories and why she can’t write a novel without at least one shark in it.

Best of Young British Novelist Adam Foulds, the author of two novels including Booker shortlisted The Quickening Maze and the Costa Book Award winning narrative poem The Broken Word, spoke to John Freeman about how he wanted to be a scientist before discovering writing, his time working in a warehouse as a forklift truck driver, why his work often focuses on moments of existential crisis and the English teachers who encouraged his writing and were surprised to receive a hefty manuscript shortly afterwards.

James Lasdun talks about his most recent memoir, Give Me Everything You Have, about being stalked by a fomer writng student.

Colin Robinson reads from his memoir 'Paddleball' in Granta 122: Betrayal and discusses how an old brotherly friction re-emerged during a game in New York, and how gym culture has changed the way we see our bodies. 

The author of 'The Reluctant Fundamentalist', Mohsin Hamid, talks to John Freeman about the extract from his latest novel 'How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia', extracted in the new issue of Granta, Betrayal.

Granta New Poet Sean Borodale discusses his debut collection Bee Journal, shortlisted for he TS Eliot prize, with online editor Ted Hodgkinson.

Robert Olen Butler reads his story 'Banyan' and talks to Ted Hodgkinson about how memory can be like compost and why every story is a search for an identity.

Michel Laub reads from his story in Best of Young Brazilian Novelists and discusses trespassing and fathers.

Best of Young Brazilian Novelist Vinicius Jatobá and his translator Jethro Soutar on the challenges and intimacy of translation.

Deborah Levy spoke to Ted Hodgkinson about being shortlisted for the Booker Prize for her novel, Swimming Home.

Alison Moore talks to John Freeman about her debut novel, The Lighthouse, which was shortlisted for the Man Booke Prize. 

Jeet Thayil talks to Ted Hodgkinson abot his Booker shortisted novel, Narcopolis.

Booker shortlisted author Tan Twan Eng talks to John Freeman about The Garden of Eveing Mists.

D.T. Max on his biography: 'Every Love Story is a Ghost Story: A Life of David Foster Wallace'.

Claire Vaye Watkins on her debut story collection Battleborn, finding ritual in relationships and drawing inspiration from cartoons, mythology and Paul Simon.

Pete Stamm reads from his novel Seven Years and discusses imagining his characters as buildings and whether people, in life and in his fiction, can change.

Poets Jo Shapcott and George Szirtes on their poems inspired by Titian's interpetations of Ovid.

Sam Byers talks about being introduced in Granta 119: Britain, turning office life into fiction and writing women.

Rachel Seiffert talks to Yuka Igarashi about her new fiction in the Britain issue.

Mark Haddon, author of 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time' talks about his latest novel, 'The Red House' and his story in Granta 119: Britain, 'The Gun'.

Cynan Jones on writing about adolesence, what we can learn from animals and why he doesn't want to be seen as a Welsh writer.

Mo Yan talks to John Freeman at the London Book Fair about writing strong women and avoiding censorship.

Andres Neuman reads from his novel The Traveller of the Century and discusses translation, writing nineteenth century characters who smell and have sex and using a post modern aesthetic to tell an epic love story.

Jeanette Winterson reads from her new memoir, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal, and her story 'All I Know About Gertrude Stein' from Granta 115: The F Word. She also talks to Saskia Vogel about the line between truth and fiction and the pleasures of Twitter.

Live recording of John Barth reading his essay 'The End?' from Exit Strategies and discussing his career, discovering Tristram Shandy, what happened to postmodernism and ways of encouraging the muse to pay a visit.

Jon McGregor talks about reworking his first published story ‘What the Sky Sees’ from the female perspective and reads from both the original and updated version, ‘In Winter the Sky’. 

Don DeLillo and Paul Auster read from their work in Granta 117: Horror and discuss writing about 'impoverished characters' and living and writing about New York.

Binyavanga Wainaina talks to Ellah Allfrey about his memoir 'One Day I Will Write About This Place', managing the expectations of an African readership and what to do with a negative review. 

A recording from the London launch of Granta 117: Horror, featuring readings from contributors Mark Doty and Will Self; their discussion with Granta publisher Sigrid Rausing and the questions and answers with the audience at Foyles bookshop.

Robert Coover reads his story ‘Vampire’ (available now on granta.com) and talks to Ted Hodgkinson about the intersection of myth and the modern world.

Lavinia Greenlaw: The Granta Podcast, Episode 18 by Granta Magazine

Philip Oltermann spoke to Ollie Brock for the Granta Podcast about English bathrooms and German car engines, and how his experience as an outsider became the nexus of his forthcoming book.

This week John Freeman spoke to Best Young American Novelist Elizabeth McCracken about her works-in-progress, a novel that broke up into six short stories, and her contribution to Granta’s latest issue, ‘Going Back’ – a story called ‘Property’.