Granta is a literary magazine and publisher in the United Kingdom whose mission centers on its "belief in the power and urgency of the story, both in fiction and non-fiction, and the story’s supreme ability to describe, illuminate and make real."^[2] In 2007, The Observer stated, "In its blend of memoirs and photojournalism, and in its championing of contemporary realist fiction, Granta has its face pressed firmly against the window, determined to witness the world."^[3]

History[link]

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 English 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: Bertram Fletcher Robinson; Michael Frayn; Ted Hughes; John Simpson; A. A. Milne; Sylvia Plath; and Stevie Smith.

Rebirth[link]

During the 1970s the publication, faced with financial difficulties and increasing levels of student apathy, was rescued by a group of interested postgraduates. In 1979, it was successfully relaunched as a magazine of "new writing", with both writers and audience drawn from the world beyond 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; Ian Jack followed him, editing Granta from 1995 until 2007. 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 became editor of the New Statesman, and Alex Clark, a former deputy literary editor of The Observer, succeeded him as the publication's first female editor.^[4] In late May 2009, Clark left the publication, and John Freeman, the American editor, took over.^[5]

As of September 2004, Granta's circulation was 46,831. It now publishes, approximately quarterly, a distinctive mix of fiction, personal history, reportage and inquiring journalism and documentary photography.

Ownership[link]

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 Sigrid Rausing.

Granta Books[link]

Like the magazine, Granta's book publishing imprint, puts literary integrity before commerciality. Its stated aim is to publish work that "stimulates, inspires, addresses difficult questions, and examines intriguing periods of history." Owner Sigrid Rausing has been vocal about her goal to maintain these standards for both the magazine and the book imprint, telling the Financial Times, "[Granta] will not publish any books that could not potentially be extracted in the magazine. We use the magazine as a yardstick for our books... We are no longer going to look at what sells as a sort of argument, because it seemed to me that we were in danger of losing our inventiveness about what we wanted to do.” Authors recently published by Granta Books include Simon Gray, Michael Collins^{[disambiguation needed ]}, Anna Funder, Olga Tokarczuk and Tim Guest.

Granta Best of Young British Novelists[link]

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, which was repeated during 2007 (issue #97). In 2010 issue #113 was dedicated to the best young Spanish language novelists. Many of the selections have been extremely prescient, with at least 12 of those listed either winning or being short-listed for major literary awards such as the Man Booker Prize and Whitbread Prize.

The inclusion of Adam Thirlwell^[6] and Monica Ali on the 2003 list caused some controversy, as neither had yet actually published a novel.^[7] Thirlwell's debut Politics later met with mixed reviews, although Ali's Brick Lane found much success.^{[citation needed]}

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.^[8]

Granta Best of Young American Novelists[link]

Granta Best of Young Spanish Language Novelists[link]

Recent contributors[link]

Recent contributors to the magazine include:

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."

See also[link]

• List of Granta issues

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• The Best of Granta Reportage. Granta Books in association with Penguin Books. 1994. ISBN 978-0-14-014071-2. 

External links[link]

• Granta official website
• Official site for Best of Young American Novelists 2007