Granta 111: Going Back - Literary Journal for Book Lovers & Writers | Perfect for Reading, Book Clubs & Creative Inspiration

This reader, proud owner of some 85 issues, is very happy with editions 110 and 111 of GRANTA, "Sex" and "Going Back". In the late 1980's, the Somali author Nuruddin Farah lent me issues of GRANTA when we were both working at the University of Khartoum, Sudan, and I have been addicted ever since. "Going Back" and its predecessor "Sex" published in Summer and Spring 2010, are a promising pair of magazines after a rather poor run of years during which I did not bother to buy every issue: Too many boy- and girlhood memories and few memorable reportages, with Wendell Steavenson on Iraq a rare exception.The absolute highlight of "Going Back" is "The Book of the Dead", war correspondent Janine di Giovanni (JG)'s heart-rending account of her 2010 return to Sarajevo. JG suffered the intense cold, deprivation of water, food, heating, and electricity of winter in Sarajevo during the constant shelling by Serbs from hill tops and their sniping from buildings inside the city, which went on for more than 1.000 days. What a shame it was for this to occur and to last so long in Europe.So JG went back in 2010 to see how her former contacts had coped since. Terrible case stories about wrecked lives follow. Serbia dearly wishes to become part of the EU, but its brainwashed people (not its current government) are still in partial denial about the recent past, hiding the worst perpetrators. Janine's report alone validates the cost of buying this issue. All the rest is a bonus.But there is plenty more to enjoy. Hal Crowther (HC)'s essay "A Hundred Fears of Solitude" is awesome, brilliant and only mildly paranoid. HC appears to argue on my behalf why I have no mobile phone and am not on Face Book, You Tube and other manifestations of what he calls the electronic bee-hive. What happens on these platforms is creating and maintaining an addiction to reaction without action, a total waste of time. HC's virulent essay accuses parents, companies and governments to have caused the creation of a new, fat, ignorant, school-wise underachieving generation of new Americans, by all having blindly promoted and embraced these new media. Convincingly argued and documented in less than 20 pages.Among other gems, a selection of love letters from a youngish Iris Murdoch to French author Raymond Queneau prompted this reader to do some further research on the net about this rather ugly man-eater. Finally, Mark Twain has ruled a century from the grave. Only in 2010, 100 years after his death, was publication of his autobiography possible. This GRANTA issue provides a preview with Mark Twain's "The Farm".Highly recommended as an alternative to electronic gadgets.