Granta issue 114: Aliens

Another great collection of stories, journalism, photos and poems from Granta, this time, loosely on the theme of 'Aliens'. Don't expect pages of guff about phasers on stun and little green men - though some science fiction would have been welcomed - as these stories deal with feelings of outsiderness, not belonging, being a stranger. Who do we call outsiders?

This is best exemplified in Philip Olterman's excellent 'The B.O.G. Standard' which treats Anglo-German relations with a sharp tongue and a deconstruction of both's machine-building enterprises, going into the etymology of the phrase 'bog standard' (British or German Standard, wouldn't you known?). While Dinaw Mengestu discusses wars in Sierra Leone being waged remotely with sharpness, emotion and passion. There's an extract from the reliable Aravind Adiga's new novel, and Mark Gevisser discusses a gay relationship in South Africa that dates back to during apartheid.

The stories hang together brilliantly, and while you feel that this might have been a good opportunity to demystify science fiction as a genre, you can fault the inclusions on another impressive journal. No writer feels like they're a proper writer till they've been in Granta.