Granta 51: Big Men

Granta: The Magazine of New Writing #51

by Bill Buford (Editor)

Big as in substantial, powerful, famous; men as in weak, wicked, and notorious. Gitta Sereny on Albert Speer, the tyrant as survivor; Caroline Alexander on the classical tyrant, Hastings Banda; Andrea Ashworth on the tyrant in the next room, her stepfather. Blake Morrison considers failing manhood, John Sweeney investigates the myth and mystery of Hitler’s missing testicle, and Douglas Brooker photographs the young – some may say strange – women of L.A.

Contents:

Andrea Ashworth - Our Mother’s New Man
Will Hobson - Dear Adolf
John Sweeney - Hitler and the Billygoat
Caroline Alexander - Plato Speaks
Blake Morrison - Bicycle Thieves
Douglas Brooker - LA Women
Lindsey Hilsum - Where is Kigali?
Edward Blishen - Trouble at the Waterworks
Claire Messud - The Professor’s History
Clive Sinclair - The Lady with the Laptop
Harold Pinter - Girls

Genres: Fiction

252 pages, Paperback

First published November 30, 1995

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

[Gabriela · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great stories, amazingly written with a lot of learning points.

[John Ollerton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have not read a Granta short story collection before, they were brilliant. Some great writers, some wonderful stories.

[Tracy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Always lots of good stuff in Granta. Always feel as if I've stretched my mind after finishing an edition.

[Ollie Clark · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent selection of short stories with an interesting theme.

I particularly enjoyed the opening story and the account of the Rwandan genocide.