Granta, the literary magazine known for publishing new writing, is launching a new series of paperbacks called “Best of Granta backlist.”
The series, the magazine says, will launch with eight titles in August 2023 and it will publish a further six titles a year. The series, which will be available for purchase in bookstores and online retailers, will kick off with publication of the first eight titles, including “The Best of Young British Novelists,” “The Wild Places,” and “Biography of X,” among others.
This is a great opportunity for readers to discover some of the best writing from Granta’s backlist.
Granta has been publishing new writing since 1979 and has become one of the most prestigious literary periodicals in the UK. The magazine has published works by many famous writers, including Salman Rushdie, Kazuo Ishiguro and Zadie Smith.
The launch is an exciting development for readers around the world who are interested in discovering new writing and exploring the literary world.
Founded in 1889 by students at Cambridge University as The Granta, a periodical of student politics, badinage and literary enterprise, it is named after the river that runs through the town. In its original incarnation, it published the work of writers like A.A. Milne, Michael Frayn, Stevie Smith, Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath. In 1979, Bill Buford and Pete de Bolla transformed Granta from a student publication to the literary quarterly it remains today. Each themed issue of Granta turns the attention of the world’s best writers on to one aspect of the way we live now.
Known for introducing young writers from around the world to the centre of the literary sphere through its “Best of Young” series, Granta has published 27 laureates of the Nobel Prize in Literature.
It has become one of the most prestigious literary periodicals in the UK and literature published by Granta regularly win prizes such as the Forward Prize, T. S. Eliot Prize, Pushcart Prize among others.
Granta Books came later, originally setting out to publish six books a year, distributed and promoted by Penguin, the launch list included John Berger’s Once in Europa, Gabriel García Márquez’s Clandestine in Chile, Martha Gellhorn’s The Face of War, and Granta’s first bestseller, The Best of Young British Novelists.
Granta has since expanded its foreign editions and is now available in many countries around the world, becoming a home for vital new writing while launching the careers of many writers. Granta’s significance in the literary world is its belief in the power and urgency of the story, both in fiction and non-fiction, and the story’s supreme ability to describe, illuminate and make real.
