Granta 157: Should We Have Stayed at Home?

From Antarctica and the deserts of the US-Mexico border, to a Siberian whale-killing station and the alleyways of Taipei, these dispatches describe a world in perpetual motion (even when it is 'locked-down'). To travel, we are reminded, is to embrace the experience of being a stranger - to acknowledge that one person's frontier is another's home. In 1984 Granta. published its first issue devoted to travel writing. Nearly forty years after that genre-defining volume, a new generation of writers from around the globe offers a new vision of what travel writing can be. Granta. 157 is guest-edited by award-winning travel writer William Atkins. It features: Jason Allen-Paisant. remembers the trees of his childhood Jamaica from his home in LeedsCarlos Manuel Alvarez. navigates Cuba's customs systemEliane Brum. travels from her home in the Brazilian Amazon to Antarctica in the era of climate crisisFrancisco Cantu. and Javier Zamora. : a former border guard travels to the US-Mexico border with a former undocumented migrant who crossed the border as a childJennifer Croft. 's richly illustrated essay on postcards and graffiti, inspired by Los Angeles Bathsheba Demuth. visits a whale-hunting station on the Bering Strait, RussiaSinead Gleeson. visits Brazil with Clarice LispectorKate Harris. with the Tinglit people of the Taku River basin, AlaskaArtist Roni Horn. on Iceland Emmanuel Iduma. returns to Lagos in his late father's footsteps, NigeriaKapka Kassabova. among the gatherers of the ancient Mesta River, BulgariaTaran Khan. with Afghan migrants in Germany and Kabul Jessica J. Lee. in the alleyways of Taipei, Taiwan, in search of her mother's homeSven Lindqvist. in the Mauritanian Sahara in 1987 - a previously unpublished essay by the late icon of travel writingBen Mauk. among the volcanoes of Duterte's Philippines Pascale Petit. tracks tigers in Paris and IndiaPhotographer James Tylor. on the legacy of whaling in Indigenous South Australia.