Granta 41: Biography

Granta: The Magazine of New Writing #41

by Bill Buford (Editor)

Is it merely a form of gossip (the affairs, the drinking, the public rows) or does it satisfy an important curiosity? Saul Bellow (on his father), James Atlas (on Saul Bellow), Gabriel García Márquez (on the mysterious Frau Frida), Lorna Sage, Louise Erdrich, Andrew Motion, and Luc Sante.

Genres: Biography, Essays

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

William 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".

Reviews

[Andy Todd · Rating 4 out of 5]

Granta is a miscellany and is likely to have some pieces that please and others that don't. This volume on 'Biography' had a good ratio of interesting writing, especially the first couple on Saul Bellow. I never have subscribed to Granta but always enjoy picking it up in Oxfam bookshops - does it matter if it was published 30 years ago?

[Peter Burton · Rating 4 out of 5]

As you’d expect the articles vary but I found the ones on how they discovered Boswell’s letters,Philip Larkins’ letters,Blake Morrison on his dad,particularly interesting