‘An object will act like a magnet to a matching object buried deep within a patient’s psyche, and this requires the analyst to have a vast and varied collection of stuff.’
Fiction by Camilla Grudova.
‘I missed a good portion of the outing and hoped the insult would come across.’
Stephanie Wambugu on chronic lateness.
‘In the real world, it’s a lonely business being into perfume.’
Dushko Petrovich Córdova on perfumery.
‘I have better things to do.’
Naoise Dolan on refusing to unpack.
‘The therapist’s room does, in a way, resemble a film set. Even if its mood attempts to be entirely neutral, someone has art-directed its blandness.’
Deborah Levy on the therapist’s consulting room.
Granta 174: Therapy
Good Medicine
Sheila Heti
‘Nobody could have convinced me that this was therapeutic.’
Sheila Heti on ketamine, DMT, and LSD therapy.
Transference in the Afternoon
Jesse Barron
‘According to the documents, they began the meetings by talking and concluded by having sex.’
Jesse Barron on the dissolution of a therapeutic relationship.
The Orange Ship
Christopher Bollas
‘I think there’s a death wish in psychoanalysis.’
Granta interviews Christopher Bollas about his childhood, the development of his psychoanalytic practice and whether “the true self” exists.
Two Poems
Natalie Shapero
‘We just have to make / small cuts here and there: the wattage / in the weight room’
Poetry by Natalie Shapero.
Mother
Elfriede Jelinek
‘Everybody should love me like my mama and, if possible, even much more.’
Elfriede Jelinek on her relationship with her mother.
Online Series | Resistance
Running Behind
Stephanie Wambugu
‘I missed a good portion of the outing and hoped the insult would come across.’
Stephanie Wambugu on chronic lateness.
Picture Me Crying
Rachel Connolly
‘Almost nobody has ever seen me cry. This has been true my entire life.’
Rachel Connolly on accessing vulnerability.
Things on Places
Jeremy Atherton Lin
‘The festoonery interrupts the usual, how things are meant to be.’
Jeremy Atherton Lin on resenting Christmas.
Principal Witness
Izabella Scott
‘The summons made clear that if I failed to turn up (which I had), a warrant could be issued for my arrest.’
Izabella Scott on court testimonies.
Free Botox
Amber Husain
‘I sensed, if you can believe it, that I was being fobbed off.’
Amber Husain on refusing free Botox.
From the Archive
Head Above Water
Buchi Emecheta
‘Inside, I knew it was more complicated: I knew I was both – a “bush” girl and a civilized Christian.’
Buchi Emecheta on her childhood in Lagos.
The Black Sheep
Italo Calvino
‘And then one day – nobody knows how – an honest man appeared.’
Fiction by Italo Calvino
Shrinks
Edmund White
‘Self-doubt, which is a cousin to self-hatred, became my constant companion.’
Edmund White on psychology, spirituality and submission.
The Vegetarian
Han Kang, translated by Deborah Smith
Winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature
Yeong-hye and her husband are ordinary people. He is an office worker with moderate ambitions and mild manners; she is an uninspired but dutiful wife. The acceptable flatline of their marriage is interrupted when Yeong-hye, seeking a more ‘plant-like’ existence, decides to become a vegetarian, prompted by grotesque recurring nightmares. In South Korea, where vegetarianism is almost unheard-of and societal mores are strictly obeyed, Yeong-hye’s decision is a shocking act of subversion. Her passive rebellion manifests in ever more bizarre and frightening forms, leading her bland husband to self-justified acts of sexual sadism.
Fraught, disturbing and beautiful, The Vegetarian is a novel about modern day South Korea, but also a novel about shame, desire and our faltering attempts to understand others, from one imprisoned body to another.
