What is fate, in a culture of free will and self-determination? Where do we project our doom, that ancient and evolving belief in predestination? In this issue of Granta, twenty-two writers meditate on fate in all its many forms.Includes contributions by Anjan Sundaram, Andrea Stuart, Fatima Bhutto, Sam Coll, Joanna Kavenna, Joseph Roth, Michael Cunningham, and Will Self.

    Policeman-turned-detective-turned-writer A Yi describes life as a provincial gumshoe in China. Physician Siddhartha Mukherjee visits a government hospital in New Delhi, where he meets Madha Sengupta, at the end of his life and on the frontiers of medicine. Robert Macfarlane explores the limestone world beneath the Peak District. And Haruki Murakami revisits his walk to Kobe in the aftermath of the 1995 earthquake.In this issue--which includes poems by Charles Simic and Ellen Bryant Voigt, a story by Miroslav Penkov, and non-fiction by David Searcy, Teju Cole, and Hector Abad--GRANTA presents a panoramic view of our shared landscape and investigates our motivations for exploring it. One’s destination is never a place,” Henry Miller wrote, but a new way of seeing things.”

    Biography, memoir, narrative history, reportage, the travel account: all these forms now have their interesting and original practitioners in India. In this Granta issue they tackle questions ranging from rape in village India to scandal in Mumbai clubs. And there is room, as always, for the best of India's fiction.

    Rachel Cusk provides a startlingly honest account of a marriage, its breakdown, and the aftermath; Caroline Moorehead gives voice to women who took part in the French Resistance--and were sent to Nazi death camps for their involvement. Urvashi Butalia writes of a male-to-female transsexual in India, who discovers all the obstacles of her adopted sex. A.S. Byatt lays bare the sexism of 1960s academia. And Francine Prose recalls her own personal journey toward feminism.The issue features new fiction from Edwidge Danticat, Julie Otsuka, Louise Erdrich and Jeanette Winterson. In 'Night Thoughts', Helen Simpson hilariously sends up all the sacred pieties of the male provider. ‘The Sex Lives of African Girls’, introduces an astonishing new voice, Taiye Selasi, who spins a haunting story about the way adult sexuality can be imposed upon the young.With award-winning reportage, memoir and fiction, over the years Granta has illuminated the most complex issues of modern life through the refractory light of literature. ‘The F Word’ will continue this tradition by addressing a theme many readers know has never lost its urgency.

    Guest Edited by Catherine Leroux and Madeleine Thien.2017 marks the 150th anniversary of the Canadian Confederation, when the British colonies of Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick were united.In this special issue of Granta, we celebrate the diversity of social, political and literary life in Canada, the largest country in the western hemisphere, and one of the few where the experiment of multiculturalism appears to have workedBringing you the best new fiction, reportage, photography, poetry and memoir from Canada, this issue showcases the best of both the English and French literary communities, throwing a spotlight on an enigmatic nation with a rich literary heritage.

    This rich treasury includes Tolkien's most beloved short fiction plus his essay on fantasy. Publisher's Note Tolkien's Magic Ring, by Peter S. Beagle The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son Tree and Leaf On Fairy-Stories Leaf by Niggle Farmer Giles of Ham The Adventures of Tom Bombadil The Adventures of Tom Bombadil Bombadil Goes Boating Errantry Princess Mee The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late The Man in the Moon Came Down Too Soon The Stone Troll Perry-the-Winkle The Mewlips Oliphaunt Fastitocalon Cat Shadow-bride The Hoard The Sea-Bell The Last Ship

    In these ten bracingly transgressive tales, all her gifts of characterisation and observation are fully engaged, ushering concealed horrors into the light. Childhood cruelty is played out behind the bushes in 'Comma'; nurses clash in 'Harley Street' over something more than professional differences; and in the title story, staying in for the plumber turns into an ambiguous and potentially deadly waiting game.Whether set in a claustrophobic Saudi Arabian flat or on a precarious mountain road on a Greek island, these stories share an insight into the darkest recesses of the spirit. Displaying all of Mantel's unmistakable style and wit, they reveal a great writer at the peak of her powers.

    Like the magazine's issues on India and Australia, its release will be a watershed moment critically and a chance to celebrate the corona of talent which has burst onto the English language publishing world in recent years.

    Compiled by Dave Eggers and students from his San Francisco writing center, it is "both uproarious and illuminating" (Publishers Weekly).

    An outstanding collection chronicling the growth of the american short story from humorous legend to powerful contempory fiction.

    Under the direction of Stephen Greenblatt, General Editor, the editors have reconsidered all aspects of the anthology to make it an even better teaching tool.

    Many of the contributors bring their own special touch, presenting a refreshingly eclectic variety of personal icons, from pub signs to seaside piers, from cattle grids to canal boats, and from village cricket to nimbies.First published as a lavish colour coffee-table book, this new expanded paperback edition has double the original number of contributions from many celebrities including Bill Bryson, Michael Palin, Eric Clapton, Bryan Ferry, Sebastian Faulks, Kate Adie, Kevin Spacey, Gavin Pretor-Pinney, Richard Mabey, Simon Jenkins, John Sergeant, Benjamin Zephaniah, Joan Bakewell, Antony Beevor, Libby Purves, Jonathan Dimbleby, and many more: and a new preface by HRH Prince Charles.

    The characters in The Lemon Table are facing the ends of their lives–some with bitter regret, others with resignation, and others still with defiant rage. Their circumstances are just as varied as their responses. In 19th-century Sweden, three brief conversations provide the basis for a lifetime of longing. In today’s England, a retired army major heads into the city for his regimental dinner–and his annual appointment with a professional lady named Babs. Somewhere nearby, a devoted wife calms (or perhaps torments) her ailing husband by reading him recipes. In stories brimming with life and our desire to hang on to it one way or another, Barnes proves himself by turns wise, funny, clever, and profound–a writer of astonishing powers of empathy and invention.

    A retelling of The Canterbury Tales

    With the same intelligence and insouciant charm he brought to How Proust Can Save Your Life, de Botton considers the pleasures of anticipation; the allure of the exotic, and the value of noticing everything from a seascape in Barbados to the takeoffs at Heathrow. Even as de Botton takes the reader along on his own peregrinations, he also cites such distinguished fellow-travelers as Baudelaire, Wordsworth, Van Gogh, the biologist Alexander von Humboldt, and the 18th-century eccentric Xavier de Maistre, who catalogued the wonders of his bedroom. The Art of Travel is a wise and utterly original book. Don’t leave home without it.