Granta
Publisher | Sigrid Rausing |
---|---|
Total circulation (12) | 46 831 |
Founded | 1989 |
Country | England |
Language | English |
- This entry is on the literary magazine and publisher. For the stretch of the river known as Granta, see River Cam.
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". It was started as a periodical featuring student politics, badinage and literary efforts and was named after 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; 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. 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. Bill 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. 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 photography
Granta 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.
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 Teran
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
The 1996 list of American novelists
- 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
Recent contributors
Recent contributors to the magazine include:
- Martin Amis
- Julian Barnes
- Saul Bellow
- Bill Bryson
- Peter Carey
- 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
- Edmund White
- Jeanette Winterson
- Tobias Wolff
Every 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."
Bibliography
- New American Writing, 1 September 1979, ISBN 0140145753
- George Steiner: The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H., 1 March 1980, ISBN 0140145761
- The End of The English Novel, 1 March 1980, ISBN 014014577X
- Beyond the Crisis, 1 March 1981, ISBN 0140145788
- Don Bloch: The Modern Common Wind, 1 March 1982, ISBN 0140145796
- A Literature for Politics, 1 December 1982, ISBN 014014580X
- Best of Young British Novelists, 1 March 1983, ISBN 0140140824
- Dirty Realism: New Writing from America, 1 June 1983, ISBN 0140068694
- John Berger: Boris, 1 September 1983, ISBN 0140068805
- Travel Writing, 1 December 1983, ISBN 0140070524
- Milan Kundera: Greetings from Prague, 1 March 1984, ISBN 0140073833
- The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones, 1 June 1984, ISBN 0140075658
- After the Revolution, 1 September 1984, ISBN 0140075666
- Autobiography, 1 December 1984, ISBN 0140075674
- James Fenton: The Fall of Saigon, 1 March 1985, ISBN 014007581X
- Science, 1 June 1985, ISBN 0140084797
- Graham Greene: While Waiting for a War, 1 September 1985, ISBN 0140084800
- The Snap Revolution, 1 March 1986, ISBN 0140084827
- More Dirt: The New American Fiction, 1 June 1986, ISBN 0140085955
- In Trouble Again, 1 December 1986, ISBN 0140085971
- The Story-Teller, 1 March 1987, ISBN 0140085998
- Hanif Kureishi: With Your Tongue Down My Throat, 1 September 1987, ISBN 0140086021
- Home, 1 March 1988, ISBN 0140086048
- Inside Intelligence, 1 June 1988, ISBN 0140086064
- Martin Amis: The Murderee, 1 September 1988, ISBN 0140086080
- Travel, 1 March 1989, ISBN 0140123563
- Death, 1 June 1989, ISBN 014012358X
- Birthday Special!, 1 September 1989, ISBN 0140123601
- Jonathan Raban: New World, 1 December 1989, ISBN 0140128638
- New Europe!, 1 March 1990, ISBN 0140132996
- The General, 1 April 1990, ISBN 014013431X
- History, 1 June 1990, ISBN 0140138560
- What Went Wrong?, 1 June 1990, ISBN 0140138587
- Simon Schama: Death of a Harvard Man, 1 August 1990, ISBN 0140138609
- John le Carré: The Unbearable Peace, 1 April 1991, ISBN 0140148469
- Mario Vargas Llosa: Vargas Llosa for President, 1 June 1991, ISBN 0140152083
- The Family, 1 September 1991, ISBN 0140152075
- We're So Happy!, 1 December 1991, ISBN 0140152113
- The Body, 1 April 1992, ISBN 0140140492
- Richard Ford: The Womanizer, 1 June 1992, ISBN 0140140549
- Biography, 1 September 1992, ISBN 0140140522
- Krauts!, 1 December 1992, ISBN 0140140565
- Best of Young British Novelists 2, 1 March 1993, ISBN 014014059X
- The Last Place on Earth, 1 June 1993, ISBN 014014062X
- Ian Hamilton: Gazza Agonistes, 1 September 1993, ISBN 0140140654
- Crime, 1 December 1993, ISBN 0140140670
- Losers, 1 March 1994, ISBN 0140140832
- Africa, 1 September 1994, ISBN 0140140840
- Money, 1 December 1994, ISBN 0140140859
- Fifty, 1 June 1995, ISBN 0140141049
- Big Men (and L.A. Women), 1 September 1995, ISBN 0140141081
- Food: The Vital Stuff, 1 December 1995, ISBN 0140141138
- News, 1 March 1996, ISBN 0140141332
- The Best of Young American Novelists, 1 June 1996, ISBN 0140141359
- Children: Blind Bitter Happiness, 1 September 1996, ISBN 0140141413
- What Happened to Us?: Britain's Valedictory Realism, 1 December 1996, ISBN 014014143X
- India!: The Golden Jubilee, 1 March 1997, ISBN 0140141472
- Ambition, 1 June 1997, ISBN 0140141480
- France: The Outsider, 1 September 1997, ISBN 0140141510
- Unbelievable, 1 December 1997, ISBN 0140141529
- The Sea, 1 March 1998, ISBN 0140141537
- What Young Men Do, 15 June 1998, ISBN 0140141545
- Beasts, 1 September 1998, ISBN 0140141553
- Russia: The Wild East, 1 December 1998, ISBN 0140141561
- London: The Lives of the City, 1 February 1999, ISBN 0140141588
- Truth + Lies, 1 May 1999, ISBN 0964561166
- Women and Children First, 1 September 1999, ISBN 0964561174
- Love Stories, 1 December 1999, ISBN 0964561182
- The Assassin, 1 April 2000, ISBN 0964561190
- Australia: The New New World, 1 July 2000, ISBN 1929001002
- Shrinks, 1 September 2000, ISBN 1929001010
- Overreachers, 1 December 2000, ISBN 1929001029
- Necessary Journeys, 1 March 2001, ISBN 0903141426
- Anonymous: Confessions of a Middle-Aged Ecstasy Eater, 7 July 2001, ISBN 0903141442
- Brief Encounters, 9 October 2001, ISBN 1929001053
- Music, 9 January 2002, ISBN 0903141485
- What We Think of America, 28 March 2002, ISBN 0903141507
- Bad Company, 15 June 2002, ISBN 0903141523
- Celebrity, 1 October 2002, ISBN 1929001096
- The Group: Pictures from Previous Lives, 9 January 2003, ISBN 192900110X
- Best of Young British Novelists 2003, 3 April 2003, ISBN 0903141582
- Life's Like That, 3 July 2003, ISBN 0903141604
- This Overheating World, 30 October 2003, ISBN 0903141620
- Over There: How America Sees the World, 1 January 2004, ISBN 1929001142
- Hidden Histories, 1 May 2004, ISBN 1929001150
- Film, 15 July 2004, ISBN 1929001169
- Jubilee, 15 October 2004, ISBN 1929001177
- Mothers, 15 December 2004, ISBN 1929001185
- The Factory, 15 April 2005, ISBN 1929001193
- Country Life: Dispatches from What's Left of It, 15 August 2005, ISBN 1929001207
- Wish You Were Here, 15 September 2005, ISBN 0903141809
- The View from Africa, 15 January 2006, ISBN 1929001223
- God's Own Countries: Are You Living In One?, 14 April 2006, ISBN 0903141841
- On the Road Again: Where Travel Writing Went Next, 15 July 2006, ISBN 192900124X