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Granta: The Magazine of New Writing #31
Granta 31: The General
Nobody has ever got through to the ‘General’ – General Alfredo Stroessner – who, until he was deposed in 1989, was one of the world’s longest reigning dictators. Nobody, that is, until Isabel Hilton, following the suggestions of the General’s former mistresses, tracked him down in his hiding place in Brazil. Plus: Salman Rushdie, Richard Ford, Jonathan Raban, Gabriel García Márquez, Christopher Hitchens, and Margaret Atwood.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1990
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About the author
Bill Buford
97 books319 followersWilliam Holmes Buford is an American author and journalist. He is the author of the books Among the Thugs and Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany. Buford was previously the fiction editor for The New Yorker, where he is still on staff. For sixteen years, he was the editor of Granta, which he relaunched in 1979. He is also credited with coining the term "dirty realism".
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 20, 2014
Before the advent of The Internet, there were subscription programs for book deliveries. It was like Christmas every time a brown paper package arrived from the folks at Granta, you just never knew what each volume would contain. While it's nice to see a revival of subscriber services again (Powells has the best), memories of Granta goodies endure whenever I chance across one on my shelves.
GRANTA 31 is a mind-blower. Check this out:
1.) Isabel Hilton
She has the cover piece on Alfredo Stroessner, the dictator of Paraguay from 1954 to 1989. It's a whopper.
2.) Salmon Rushdie
His essay, IS NOTHING SACRED?, looks at whether religious mentality can survive outside of religious dogma. The stream of questioning looks at several verticals, even books.
I grew up kissing books and bread.
3.) Christopher Hitchens
ON THE ROAD TO TIMISOARA looks at the state of Romanian affairs during the downfall of the Iron Curtain and Ceausescu's assassination.
4.) Bill Bryson
The wordy traveller takes on Norway, reindeer, and the Northern Lights.
5.) Margaret Atwood
In this elegant short story, Atwood writes about the Egyptian myth of the rebirth of Osrisis.
There's more, but that's just icing on the cake. As the Delfonics sang, "Didn't I blow your mind this time, didn't I".
Book Season = Autumn (serious book-ing)
GRANTA 31 is a mind-blower. Check this out:
1.) Isabel Hilton
She has the cover piece on Alfredo Stroessner, the dictator of Paraguay from 1954 to 1989. It's a whopper.
2.) Salmon Rushdie
His essay, IS NOTHING SACRED?, looks at whether religious mentality can survive outside of religious dogma. The stream of questioning looks at several verticals, even books.
I grew up kissing books and bread.
3.) Christopher Hitchens
ON THE ROAD TO TIMISOARA looks at the state of Romanian affairs during the downfall of the Iron Curtain and Ceausescu's assassination.
4.) Bill Bryson
The wordy traveller takes on Norway, reindeer, and the Northern Lights.
5.) Margaret Atwood
In this elegant short story, Atwood writes about the Egyptian myth of the rebirth of Osrisis.
There's more, but that's just icing on the cake. As the Delfonics sang, "Didn't I blow your mind this time, didn't I".
Book Season = Autumn (serious book-ing)
December 31, 2024
I will always remember Isabel Hilton's piece on Alfredo Stroessner, the dictator of Paraguay from 1954 to 1989 because I am of the generation that grew up on the mystique of Paraguay under his rule. From Graham Greene's 'Travels With My Aunt' through Ira Levin's 'The Boys from Brazil' (book and film) to countless others, particularly all those shoddy paperbacks with thrilling covers announcing Paraguay was the centre of the Fourth Reich and soon its armies of vampire/zombie/clones etc. (delete as appropriate) would be unleashed under the evil/satanic/ancient evil/corrupt banker and politicians, etc. Paraguay and Stroessner by their very remoteness and unavailability for comment made Paraguay and him the perfect spot and leader complicit in every possible type of wrong doing and conspiracy. Of course we didn't believe them all but there was never any doubt that Stroessner was a particularly bad, but also powerful and clever dictator with access to a state treasury which had enriched him with marble palaces and fleets of minion and supporters who would die rather then desert him.
Yet they did and Stroessner ended up in banal middle class ordinariness. There was no legions of undead or Nazi Fourth Reich vampires or even millions in Swiss Banks or, in the end, loyal followers. A man so demonised, whose power and vengeance was so terrible you would have thought death the absolute necessity of his removal from power. But it wasn't and the truth of Stroessner and his years in power were certainly ugly and corrupt but it was not operatic evil, but the petty, banal, sordid nastiness of limited men in positions of power creating a desert of mediocrity all about them and imagining themselves Ceasers in the comic opera nothingness of their world.
All that is captured brilliantly in Isbel Hilton's piece. In addition there were wonderful articles from Salmon Rushdie on whether religious mentality can survive outside of religious dogma; Christopher Hitchens the state of Romanian affairs during the downfall of the Iron Curtain and Ceausescu's assassination and much more.
As always Granta is full of surprises and delights not the least of which is that so much of each issue is worth reading long after it was published and the circumstances that inspired it have vanished. Older issues are also a testament to a time when fine writing emerged and was published, read and valued that required you to think, argue, maybe disagree. It often said things you didn't like, and even more often it would distress you because it showed you man's inhumanity to man in all its awfulness. There were no warnings that you might be distressed because the Publisher, and authors, wanted to distress you. It was only by upsetting their readers they could be sure they had done their job.
Yet they did and Stroessner ended up in banal middle class ordinariness. There was no legions of undead or Nazi Fourth Reich vampires or even millions in Swiss Banks or, in the end, loyal followers. A man so demonised, whose power and vengeance was so terrible you would have thought death the absolute necessity of his removal from power. But it wasn't and the truth of Stroessner and his years in power were certainly ugly and corrupt but it was not operatic evil, but the petty, banal, sordid nastiness of limited men in positions of power creating a desert of mediocrity all about them and imagining themselves Ceasers in the comic opera nothingness of their world.
All that is captured brilliantly in Isbel Hilton's piece. In addition there were wonderful articles from Salmon Rushdie on whether religious mentality can survive outside of religious dogma; Christopher Hitchens the state of Romanian affairs during the downfall of the Iron Curtain and Ceausescu's assassination and much more.
As always Granta is full of surprises and delights not the least of which is that so much of each issue is worth reading long after it was published and the circumstances that inspired it have vanished. Older issues are also a testament to a time when fine writing emerged and was published, read and valued that required you to think, argue, maybe disagree. It often said things you didn't like, and even more often it would distress you because it showed you man's inhumanity to man in all its awfulness. There were no warnings that you might be distressed because the Publisher, and authors, wanted to distress you. It was only by upsetting their readers they could be sure they had done their job.
September 21, 2019
One of the better editions, relatively free of that entitled, comfortable, middle class liberal superiority that tends to characterise Granta writing.
The lead article is very good though it has the same teasing quality of a Nick Broomfield documentary, but very little of the wit. When Stroessner is finally interviewed it's clear that stripped of his uniform and medals and flunkies he's just a confused old man. Too many punches are pulled is what I'm saying.
On the other hand Christopher Hitchens's much shorter account of a visit to Romania shortly after the coup d'etat against Ceausescu is visceral and honest. When power suddenly switches circuits this is much more precisely what things feel like.
The Salman Rushdie speech and interview are also very good.
The lead article is very good though it has the same teasing quality of a Nick Broomfield documentary, but very little of the wit. When Stroessner is finally interviewed it's clear that stripped of his uniform and medals and flunkies he's just a confused old man. Too many punches are pulled is what I'm saying.
On the other hand Christopher Hitchens's much shorter account of a visit to Romania shortly after the coup d'etat against Ceausescu is visceral and honest. When power suddenly switches circuits this is much more precisely what things feel like.
The Salman Rushdie speech and interview are also very good.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews