Granta

Infobox Magazine
title = Granta


image_size = 200px
image_caption = "Granta" 103 (Autumn 2008)
editor = Alex Clark
category = Literary magazine
paid_circulation =
unpaid_circulation =
total_circulation = "almost 50,000" [" [http://news.independent.co.uk/media/article2062713.ece Granta: A new chapter at the original literary journal] ", "The Independent", December 11, 2006 (accessed March 2, 2007).]
circulation_year = 2006
frequency = Quarterly (irregular)
publisher = Sigrid Rausing
firstdate = Relaunch: September 1, 1979
language = English
founded = 1889
country = Flag|United Kingdom
website = [http://www.granta.com/ www.granta.com]

Granta is a literary magazine and publisher in the United Kingdom.

History

Granta was founded in 1889 by students at Cambridge University as "The Granta", edited by R. C. Lehmann (who later became a major contributor to "Punch"). It was started as a periodical featuring student politics, badinage and literary efforts. The name is an older form of what is today called the River Cam, the river that runs through the town. An early editor of the magazine was R. P. Keigwin, the England cricketer and Danish scholar.

In this form the magazine had a long and distinguished history. The magazine published juvenilia of several writers who later became well known, including: Michael Frayn; Ted Hughes; John Simpson; A. A. Milne; Sylvia Plath; and Stevie Smith.

Rebirth

During the 1970s the publication encountered financial difficulties, and increasing levels of student apathy, and as a result had to be rescued by a group of interested postgraduates.Fact|date=April 2007 It was relaunched in 1979 as a magazine of "new writing" aimed both at writers and at a wider audience than its original one in Cambridge by Bill Buford, Pete de Bolla and Jonathan Levi. Buford (who wrote "Among the Thugs" originally as a project for the journal) was the editor for its first 16 years in the new incarnation; Granta has been edited by Ian Jack since 1995. In April 2007 it was announced that Jason Cowley, editor of the "Observer Sport Monthly", would succeed Jack as editor in September 2007. Cowley redesigned and relaunched the magazine and launched a new website; in September 2008 he will leave to become editor of the "New Statesman", and Alex Clark, a former deputy literary editor of "The Observer", will succeed him as the publication's first female editor. [Stephen Brook [http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/may/28/pressandpublishing"Granta names Alex Clark as first female editor",] "The Guardian", 28 May 2008.] William Boyd guest edited "Granta 100". As of September 2004, its circulation was 46,831.

It now publishes, approximately quarterly, a distinctive mix of:
*fiction
*personal history
*reportage and inquiring journalism
*documentary photographyGranta also has a book publishing imprint, Granta Books, whose recently published authors include Simon Gray, Michael Collins, Anna Funder, Olga Tokarczuk and Tim Guest.

Ownership

In 1994, Rea Hederman, owner of "The New York Review of Books" took a controlling stake in the magazine. In October 2005, control of the magazine was bought by Swedish-born philanthropist, anthropologist and human rights campaigner Sigrid Rausing, granddaughter of billionaire Ruben Rausing, inventor of the Tetra-Pak carton.

Granta Best of Young British Novelists

In 1983, Granta (issue #7) published a list of 20 young British novelists as names to watch out for in the future. Since then, the magazine has repeated the exercise in 1993 (issue #43) and in 2003 (issue #81). In 1996 (issue #54), Granta also published a similar list of promising young American novelists, to be repeated at the end of 2006.

With the benefit of hindsight many of the selections have been extremely prescient, with at least 12 of those listed either winning or being shortlisted for major literary awards such as the Man Booker Prize and Whitbread Prize. By the same token however a number of those included on the lists have since disappeared without trace.

The inclusion of Adam Thirlwell and Monica Ali on the 2003 list caused some controversy as neither had yet actually published a novel [http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,12084,1031683,00.html] . Thirlwell's debut "Politics" later met with mixed reviews, although Ali's "Brick Lane" found much success.

More controversy ensued when Dan Rhodes contacted everyone else on the 2003 list to try to get them to make a joint statement in protest against the Iraq war, which was gaining momentum at the time. Not all the writers responded, becoming one of the reasons Rhodes almost decided to quit writing altogether [http://www.3ammagazine.com/litarchives/2003/jul/interview_dan_rhodes.html] .

The 1983 list

*Martin Amis
*William Boyd
*Maggie Gee
*Kazuo Ishiguro
*Adam Mars-Jones
*Salman Rushdie
*Julian Barnes
*Ursula Bentley
*Pat Barker
*Buchi Emecheta
*Ian McEwan
*Shiva Naipaul
*Graham Swift
*Rose Tremain
*Clive Sinclair
*Alan Judd
*Philip Norman
*A. N. Wilson
*Christopher Priest
*Lisa St Aubin de Terán

The 1993 list

*Kazuo Ishiguro
*Hanif Kureishi
*Ben Okri
*Esther Freud
*Caryl Phillips
*Will Self
*Iain Banks
*Adam Lively
*Helen Simpson
*Tibor Fischer
*Nicholas Shakespeare
*Philip Kerr
*Lawrence Norfolk
*Louis de Bernieres
*A. L. Kennedy
*Alan Hollinghurst
*Candia McWilliam
*Anne Billson
*Adam Mars-Jones
*Jeanette Winterson

The 2003 list

*Monica Ali
*Nicola Barker
*Rachel Cusk
*Peter Ho Davies
*Susan Elderkin
*Philip Hensher
*A. L. Kennedy
*Hari Kunzru
*Toby Litt
*David Mitchell
*Andrew O'Hagan
*David Peace
*Dan Rhodes
*Ben Rice
*Rachel Seiffert
*Zadie Smith
*Adam Thirlwell
*Alan Warner
*Sarah Waters
*Robert McLiam Wilson

Granta Best of Young American Novelists

The 1996 list

*Sherman Alexie
*Madison Smartt Bell
*Ethan Canin
*Edwidge Danticat
*Tom Drury
*Tony Earley
*Jeffrey Eugenides
*Jonathan Franzen
*David Guterson
*David Haynes
*Allen Kurzweil
*Elizabeth McCracken
*Lorrie Moore
*Fay Myenne Ng
*Robert O'Connor
*Chris Offutt
*Stewart O'Nan
*Mona Simpson
*Melanie Rae Thon
*Kate Wheeler

The 2007 list

*Daniel Alarcon
*Kevin Brockmeier
*Judy Budnitz
*Christopher Coake
*Anthony Doerr
*Jonathan Safran Foer
*Nell Freudenberger
*Olga Grushin
*Dara Horn
*Gabe Hudson
*Uzodinma Iweala
*Nicole Krauss
*Rattawut Lapcharoensap
*Yiyun Li
*Maile Meloy
*ZZ Packer
*Jess Row
*Karen Russell
*Akhil Sharma
*Gary Shteyngart
*John Wray

Recent contributors

Recent contributors to the magazine include:
*Martin Amis
*Julian Barnes
*Saul Bellow
*Bill Bryson
*Peter Carey (novelist)
*Raymond Carver
*Angela Carter
*Bruce Chatwin
*Tony Earley
*James Fenton
*Richard Ford
*Martha Gellhorn
*Nadine Gordimer
*Milan Kundera
*Doris Lessing
*Barry Lopez
*Ian McEwan
*Gabriel García Márquez
*Jayne Anne Phillips
*Arundhati Roy
*Salman Rushdie
*George Steiner
*Graham Swift
*Paul Theroux
*Frederic Tuten
*Edmund White
*Jeanette Winterson
*Tobias Wolff
*Binyavanga WainainaEvery issue since the relaunch is still in print. Older issues are widely available in used bookstores, as well as directly from the publisher. The publishers state that some of them — "Travel" (issue 10) and "The Family" (issue 37), for example — are "significant contributions to the literature of the English language."

Issues

#"New American Writing", 1 September 1979, ISBN 0-14-014575-3
#George Steiner: "The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H.", 1 March 1980, ISBN 0-14-014576-1
#"The End of The English Novel", 1 March 1980, ISBN 0-14-014577-X
#"Beyond the Crisis", 1 March 1981, ISBN 0-14-014578-8
#Don Bloch: "The Modern Common Wind", 1 March 1982, ISBN 0-14-014579-6
#"A Literature for Politics", 1 December 1982, ISBN 0-14-014580-X
#"Best of Young British Novelists", 1 March 1983, ISBN 0-14-014082-4
#"Dirty Realism: New Writing from America", 1 June 1983, ISBN 0-14-006869-4
#John Berger: "Boris", 1 September 1983, ISBN 0-14-006880-5
#"Travel Writing", 1 December 1983, ISBN 0-14-007052-4
#Milan Kundera: "Greetings from Prague", 1 March 1984, ISBN 0-14-007383-3
#"The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones", 1 June 1984, ISBN 0-14-007565-8
#"After the Revolution", 1 September 1984, ISBN 0-14-007566-6
#"Autobiography", 1 December 1984, ISBN 0-14-007567-4
#James Fenton: "The Fall of Saigon", 1 March 1985, ISBN 0-14-007581-X
#"Science", 1 June 1985, ISBN 0-14-008479-7
#Graham Greene: "While Waiting for a War", 1 September 1985, ISBN 0-14-008480-0
#"The Snap Revolution", 1 March 1986, ISBN 0-14-008482-7
#"More Dirt: The New American Fiction", 1 June 1986, ISBN 0-14-008595-5
#"In Trouble Again", 1 December 1986, ISBN 0-14-008597-1
#"The Story-Teller", 1 March 1987, ISBN 0-14-008599-8
#Hanif Kureishi: "With Your Tongue Down My Throat", 1 September 1987, ISBN 0-14-008602-1
#"Home", 1 March 1988, ISBN 0-14-008604-8
#"Inside Intelligence", 1 June 1988, ISBN 0-14-008606-4
#"Murder", 1 September 1988, ISBN 0-14-008608-0
#"Travel", 1 March 1989, ISBN 0-14-012356-3
#"Death", 1 June 1989, ISBN 0-14-012358-X
#"Birthday Special!", 1 September 1989, ISBN 0-14-012360-1
#Jonathan Raban: "New World", 1 December 1989, ISBN 0-14-012863-8
#"New Europe!", 1 March 1990, ISBN 0-14-013299-6
#"The General", 1 April 1990, ISBN 0-14-013431-X
#"History", 1 June 1990, ISBN 0-14-013856-0
#"What Went Wrong?", 1 June 1990, ISBN 0-14-013858-7
#Simon Schama: "Death of a Harvard Man", 1 August 1990, ISBN 0-14-013860-9
#John le Carré: "The Unbearable Peace", 1 April 1991, ISBN 0-14-014846-9
#Mario Vargas Llosa: "Vargas Llosa for President", 1 June 1991, ISBN 0-14-015208-3
#"The Family", 1 September 1991, ISBN 0-14-015207-5
#"We're So Happy!", 1 December 1991, ISBN 0-14-015211-3
#"The Body", 1 April 1992, ISBN 0-14-014049-2
#Richard Ford: "The Womanizer", 1 June 1992, ISBN 0-14-014054-9
#"Biography", 1 September 1992, ISBN 0-14-014052-2
#"Krauts!", 1 December 1992, ISBN 0-14-014056-5
#"Best of Young British Novelists 2", 1 March 1993, ISBN 0-14-014059-X
#"The Last Place on Earth", 1 June 1993, ISBN 0-14-014062-X
#Ian Hamilton: "Gazza Agonistes", 1 September 1993, ISBN 0-14-014065-4
#"Crime", 1 December 1993, ISBN 0-14-014067-0
#"Losers", 1 March 1994, ISBN 0-14-014083-2
#"Africa", 1 September 1994, ISBN 0-14-014084-0
#"Money", 1 December 1994, ISBN 0-14-014085-9
#"Fifty", 1 June 1995, ISBN 0-14-014104-9
#"Big Men (and L.A. Women)", 1 September 1995, ISBN 0-14-014108-1
#"Food: The Vital Stuff", 1 December 1995, ISBN 0-14-014113-8
#"News", 1 March 1996, ISBN 0-14-014133-2
#"The Best of Young American Novelists", 1 June 1996, ISBN 0-14-014135-9
#"Children: Blind Bitter Happiness", 1 September 1996, ISBN 0-14-014141-3
#"What Happened to Us?: Britain's Valedictory Realism", 1 December 1996, ISBN 0-14-014143-X
#"India!: The Golden Jubilee", 1 March 1997, ISBN 0-14-014147-2
#"Ambition", 1 June 1997, ISBN 0-14-014148-0
#"France: The Outsider", 1 September 1997, ISBN 0-14-014151-0
#"Unbelievable", 1 December 1997, ISBN 0-14-014152-9
#"The Sea", 1 March 1998, ISBN 0-14-014153-7
#"What Young Men Do", 15 June 1998, ISBN 0-14-014154-5
#"Beasts", 1 September 1998, ISBN 0-14-014155-3
#"Russia: The Wild East", 1 December 1998, ISBN 0-14-014156-1
#"London: The Lives of the City", 1 February 1999, ISBN 0-14-014158-8
#"Truth + Lies", 1 May 1999, ISBN 0-9645611-6-6
#"Women and Children First", 1 September 1999, ISBN 0-9645611-7-4
#"Love Stories", 1 December 1999, ISBN 0-9645611-8-2
#"The Assassin", 1 April 2000, ISBN 0-9645611-9-0
#"Australia: The New New World", 1 July 2000, ISBN 1-929001-00-2
#"Shrinks", 1 September 2000, ISBN 1-929001-01-0
#"Overreachers", 1 December 2000, ISBN 1-929001-02-9
#"Necessary Journeys", 1 March 2001, ISBN 0-903141-42-6
#Anonymous: "Confessions of a Middle-Aged Ecstasy Eater", 7 July 2001, ISBN 0-903141-44-2
#"Brief Encounters", 9 October 2001, ISBN 1-929001-05-3
#"Music", 9 January 2002, ISBN 0-903141-48-5
#"What We Think of America", 28 March 2002, ISBN 0-903141-50-7
#"Bad Company", 15 June 2002, ISBN 0-903141-52-3
#"Celebrity", 1 October 2002, ISBN 1-929001-09-6
#"The Group: Pictures from Previous Lives", 9 January 2003, ISBN 1-929001-10-X
#"Best of Young British Novelists 2003", 3 April 2003, ISBN 0-903141-58-2
#"Life's Like That", 3 July 2003, ISBN 0-903141-60-4
#"This Overheating World", 30 October 2003, ISBN 0-903141-62-0
#"Over There: How America Sees the World", 1 January 2004, ISBN 1-929001-14-2
#"Hidden Histories", 1 May 2004, ISBN 1-929001-15-0
#"Film", 15 July 2004, ISBN 1-929001-16-9
#"Jubilee", 15 October 2004, ISBN 1-929001-17-7
#"Mothers", 15 December 2004, ISBN 1-929001-18-5
#"The Factory", 15 April 2005, ISBN 1-929001-19-3
#"Country Life: Dispatches from What's Left of It", 15 August 2005, ISBN 1-929001-20-7
#"Wish You Were Here", 15 September 2005, ISBN 0-903141-80-9
#"The View from Africa", 15 January 2006, ISBN 1-929001-22-3
#"God's Own Countries: Are You Living In One?", 14 April 2006, ISBN 0-903141-84-1
#"On the Road Again: Where Travel Writing Went Next", 15 July 2006, ISBN 1-929001-24-X
#"Loved Ones", 2 October 2006, ISBN 0-903141-88-4
#" War Zones", 15 January 2007, ISBN 0-90314-19-0
#" Best of Young American Novelists 2", 10 May 2007, ISBN 9-780903141-92-5
#" The Deep End", 2 July 2007, ISBN 9-780903141-94-9
#" What Happened Next", 5 October 2007, ISBN 9-780903141-96-3
#" Granta 100", 7 January 2008, ISBN 1-905881-00-2
#"Granta 101", 2 April 2008, ISBN 9781905881017

References

External links

* [http://www.granta.com/ Granta official website]
* [http://novelists.granta.com/ Official site for Best of Young American Novelists 2007]