Granta

For our winter issue, Granta goes to therapy. Read the issue for free online for the next five days. granta.com/products/grant…

‘If you haven’t read Sophocles in a while, it’s worth reminding yourself that his Oedipus didn’t suffer from an Oedipus complex.’ Christian Lorentzen dissects Freud’s reputation. granta.com/crews-control/

‘Unlike the other Chopra men in the complex, Mohit knew how to concentrate his rage.’  An extract from The Complex by Karan Mahajan. Out now from Viking. granta.com/the-complex/

‘Rumsfeld says everything is improving day by day. I suggest he come live here for a couple of days and then say that.’ Nuha al-Radi’s diaries from Baghdad. granta.com/twenty-eight-d…

‘Hysterical women were pathologised, while hysterical men were often seen in the psychoanalytic tradition as egocentric.’ Juliet Mitchell on hysteria, gendered conditions and the status of women. granta.com/dropped-from-t…

Granta was saddened to hear of Jürgen Habermas’s death. He joined Granta for an interview in 2023 and, in honour of his life and work, this interview is now free to read. granta.com/europes-mistak…

‘Those who have taken part in ayahuasca ceremonies in the Americas call it la medicina.’ Guadalupe Nettel on psychoactive substances, with photography by Musuk Nolte. granta.com/plant-teachers/

‘I think there’s a death wish in psychoanalysis. Many psychoanalytic societies would prefer to go down with a ship than just find another boat and renovate it and make it better.’ Granta interviews Christopher Bollas. granta.com/the-orange-shi…

your periodic reminder to read Binyavanga Wainana's "How to Write About Africa" lest you make a fool of yourself when you talk about Congo, Sudan & other parts of the continent. granta.com/how-to-write-a…

‘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 staging of a therapist’s consulting room. granta.com/every-dark-cor…

Akshi Singh with a wonderful description of aprés-coup: "...elegant ways of appreciating how the sweeping searchlight of hindsight can attribute meaning to encounters that in the moment of their unfolding felt insignificant, or a mere expression of chance."

‘Psychoanalysis has its own suspicions that underneath the bonnet we are all the same, and Perec referred to the “anonymous ironmongery” of the Freudian playbook.’ Paul Keegan on Georges Perec’s psychoanalytic sessions with Jean-Bertrand Pontalis. granta.com/the-perec-case/

‘In Crews’s portrait Freud comes to resemble one of his kookiest latter-day enemies: L. Ron Hubbard.’ Christian Lorentzen on Frederick Crews and the Freud Wars. granta.com/crews-control/

‘I watched Sissy’s eyes wander around the room. She was thirty-seven, and had a brown bowl cut. I have noticed that classical musicians will unconsciously fashion themselves to resemble their instruments.’ Fiction by Camilla Grudova. granta.com/mozart-balls/

‘One recurring motif is the sensation of being embraced by a loving presence.’ Guadalupe Nettel on ayahuasca and Musuk Nolte’s photography. granta.com/plant-teachers/

Human beings are much more complex than the term 'hysteria', or 'borderline'. (...) Each hysteric is very different from any other hysteric.

Nigel Shafran photographs therapists’ rooms. granta.com/therapy-rooms/

‘Marriage is a necessary regression. We are too complicated. We’re too complex.’ Christopher Bollas on marriage, diagnostic labels and psychoanalysis. granta.com/the-orange-shi…

‘Language is the centre of gravity in the endeavour of psychoanalysis.’ Deborah Levy on the talking cure. granta.com/every-dark-cor…

‘One of the things I love about psychoanalysis is that it encourages an infinite pleating of meanings and motivations, compressed and expanding like an accordion.’  Akshi Singh on multiplicity, Lacan and Issey Miyake.  granta.com/issey-miyake/

This evening in Berlin, Geetanjali Shree will be in conversation with Granta’s editor, Thomas Meaney. Event details here: berliner-kuenstlerprogramm.de/en/events/read…