Granta 111: Going Back

Description

We all go back: to the house or town where we were raised, to an old friend or lover, to an idea or belief we abandoned long ago. But can we ever trust our memories? And what if it still proves impossible to return? In this latest issue of Granta, writers meditate on these essential questions from an exciting array of vantage points. Nic Dunlop writes of Pol Pot's chief executioner, Comrade Duch, the first ever Khmer Rouge to go on trial for war crimes, and the only one to date who has confessed to the brutal killings. Richard Russo returns home to Gloversville, NY, the dying upstate town which once made one out of every three pairs of gloves in the world - and is now on the verge of extinction. Janine di Giovanni revisits Bosnia and the children she met there during the conflict of the early nineties. The issue will feature new fiction by up-and-coming writer Claire Watkins, a blistering critique, by American essayist Hal Crowther, of the internet's erosion of solitude, and a new story set in contemporary Lagos by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Exclusively on Granta.com: Owen Sheers returns to Zimbabwe, plus new poetry from Troy Jollimore.

John Freeman's criticism has appeared in more than 200 newspapers around the world, including the Guardian, La Vanguardia, and Arcadia. Between 2006 and 2008, he served as president of the National Book Critics Circle. His first book, The Tyranny of E-Mail, was published in October 2009 by Scribner.