New Reads

I saw someone reading Granta 97 on the tube last week and I almost blurted out, "Hey, I've also got a copy of that!" Don't blame me; one doesn't always see people reading Granta on the London Underground. Even I don't read it on the London Underground, more like at the bedside, but hey, I digress.

Author of Beasts of No Nation, Uzodinma Iweala, is on Granta's list of the Best of Young American Novelists, a list that includes Jonathan Safran Foer. Apart from the fact that each novelist will be expected to have a stellar future career in books, the really good thing for the reader is, we are presented with a new short story each from the bright young things. Iweala's story, Dance Cadaverous, is a very surburban American short story. Daven kissed his late best friend Zhou - but he tells his father, "I'm not gay." And as the story nears its end, our main character wonders if he can have his heterosexuality back.

-Read the story in Granta 97

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Jumoke Verissimo's story, Come Away, Poverty's Catching is about just that - poverty so grinding you fear it will stick to you. It's also an opportunity to present some colourful excerpt on this blog. Here goes...

Baba Rasaki's sons had been forced to fend for themselves doing odd jobs, and their father always stole from them. When they challenged him, he would curse loudly and lengthily in Yoruba, "God finish your mother's cunt! You, this bloody, motherless boy. You think you have a mother; what you have is a murderer. And that murderer of yours is in Aro mental home with roaches in her buttocks!"

-Read on