Granta – författare

After a noisy upbringing as one of six children, and adulthood as a vocal feminist and mother, Sara Maitland began to crave silence. Over the past five years, she has spent periods of silence in the Sinai Desert and the Australian bush and on the Isle of Skye. She interweaves these experiences with the history of silence told through fairy tale and myth, Western and Eastern religious traditions, the Enlightenment and psychoanalysis, up to the ambivalence towards silence in contemporary society. Maitland has built a hermitage on an isolated Scottish moor, and the book culminates powerfully with her experiences of silence in this new home.

As with the first two Young British Novelists issues, Granta's 2003 list was compelling and prescient. The issue introduced readers to fiction by Zadie Smith, David Mitchell and Monica Ali. From Ben Rice's story of marital crises among Koi fanciers to Hari Kunzru's account of the development of a Bollywood-inspired computer virus, the issue showcases the multifacetedness and vibrancy of contemporary British literature.

Like what, exactly? Like always ready to surprise you on the stairs; like wishing you had only known; like wanting it to go on for rather longer. This issue of Granta contains lessons drawn from the muddle of experience. With:Lynn Barber on the conman who seduced her, and then her parentsKathryn Chetkovich on living with envy, bred by a partner who is more successful than she isSimon Gray on smoking, absent friends, getting old, smoking, and why Gary Cooper walked the way he didGraham Robb on how we tried to spot homosexuality, in ourselves and others.And in fiction:Nell Freudenberger: the tutor's storyJ. Robert Lennon: look what the cat brought home (sex) Jayne Anne Phillips: the Termite's birthdayand Paul MurrayPlus: 'The Steam People' , a picture essay by Robin Grierson on the glorious machines of old England, and their lovers.

"On The Road Again: Where travel writing went next..." features Tim Parks, on the joys of commuting from Verona to Milan every day; Christopher de Bellaigue, on tracking down the Armenians in Turkey; Jeremy Treglown, following in the footsteps of V. S. Pritchett in Spain; Jeremy Seabrook, on being separated from his twin; and, Todd McEwen, on Cary Grant's trousers. It also contains new fiction by Ann Beattie, Tessa Hadley and Claire Keegan.