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← Back to all issuesGranta 161: Sister, Brother
Autumn 2022
Psychoanalysis famously privileges the vertical relationship between a child (the patient) and their parents over the seemingly equal and unproblematic horizontal connections between siblings. This issue of Granta tells a different story – one of chaotic hierarchies, zero-sum games of competition alternating with tenderness, lifelong relationships that nevertheless can sometimes break.
From this Issue
Essays & Memoir|Granta 161
Essays & Memoir|Granta 161
Introduction
Sigrid Rausing
‘What precisely is the sibling relationship, and how does it shape our lives?’
The editor introduces the autumn issue.
Essays & Memoir|Granta 161![padlock](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%200%200'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Essays & Memoir|Granta 161![padlock](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%200%200'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
O Brother
John Niven
‘Up on the light box on the wall are the scans of Gary’s brain, bone white standing out against smoked grey.’
John Niven remembers the last days of his brother, Gary.
Fiction|Granta 161![padlock](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%200%200'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Fiction|Granta 161![padlock](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%200%200'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
The Durhams
Ben Pester
‘We have this space and we have permission to summon each other into it. Sibspace.’
Fiction by Ben Pester.
Poetry|Granta 161
Poetry|Granta 161
Nightstand
Natalie Shapero
‘you gotta see this truck that ignored the height sign / on the underpass and now it’s lodged like an overlarge pill’
A poem by Nathalie Shapero.
Essays & Memoir|Granta 161![padlock](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%200%200'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Essays & Memoir|Granta 161![padlock](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%200%200'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Plastic Mothers
Lauren John Joseph
‘In essence she acted as though I were the kid her mother had left her to raise.’
Lauren John Joseph on the blurred contours of motherhood.
Essays & Memoir|Granta 161![padlock](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%200%200'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Essays & Memoir|Granta 161![padlock](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%200%200'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Brother
Vanessa Onwuemezi
‘Brother, to be your sister is to confront the possibility of having been other than I am.’
Vanessa Onwuemezi on the meaning of sisterhood.
Essays & Memoir|Granta 161
Essays & Memoir|Granta 161
Miniature Twins
Omer Friedlander
‘We were so small, palm-sized, that our parents went to a doll shop in Jerusalem to find clothes that would fit us.’
Omer Friedlander writes about his twin.
Art & Photography|Granta 161![padlock](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%200%200'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Art & Photography|Granta 161![padlock](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%200%200'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Wales 2013–2022
Sebastián Bruno & Sophie Mackintosh
‘Sebastián Bruno’s careful documentation of the communities of South Wales, is made up of images stark in their beauty.’
Sophie Mackintosh introduces photography by Sebastián Bruno.
Essays & Memoir|Granta 161![padlock](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%200%200'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Essays & Memoir|Granta 161![padlock](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%200%200'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Siblings
Karolina Ramqvist
‘I asked her why she hadn’t told me I had a sister before, and she said she’d thought it was for my father to tell, since she was his child.’
Karolina Ramqvist on finding her estranged siblings, translated from the Swedish by Saskia Vogel.
Essays & Memoir|Granta 161![padlock](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%200%200'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Essays & Memoir|Granta 161![padlock](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%200%200'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
A Little Closer
Angelique Stevens
‘We were twelve and thirteen and smoking cigarettes in our basement with friends – Mom and Dad at work, Hall & Oates on forty-five.’
Angelique Stevens recalls the year her sister went missing.
Art & Photography|Granta 161![padlock](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%200%200'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Art & Photography|Granta 161![padlock](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%200%200'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
The Making of the Babies
Lee Lai
‘I can’t believe it’s been two years since we’ve been able to get together and we’re still just arguing about which of us incurs more shit from the aunties.’
A graphic short story by Lee Lai.
Fiction|Granta 161
Fiction|Granta 161
Betwixt and Betwin
Taiye Selasi
‘There has to be sameness if you are twins. If there isn’t it has to be invented.’
Taiye Selasi on trying to escape from twinhood.
Fiction|Granta 161![padlock](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%200%200'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Fiction|Granta 161![padlock](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%200%200'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Rain
Colin Barrett
‘As Scully and Charlie Vaughan passed under the trees in the town square, the afternoon seemed to switch on and off around them.’
Fiction by Colin Barrett.
Essays & Memoir|Granta 161![padlock](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%200%200'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
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The Tiddler
Charlie Gilmour
‘It was a competition, though I hadn’t realised that yet.’
Charlie Gilmour on bullying.
Essays & Memoir|Granta 161
Essays & Memoir|Granta 161
The Stripping of Threads
Jamal Mahjoub
‘I hold no illusions about us being reunited. All of this has gone on for far too long.’
Jamal Mahjoub on family obligation and estrangement.
Art & Photography|Granta 161![padlock](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%200%200'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Art & Photography|Granta 161![padlock](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%200%200'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Looking at My Brother
Julian Slagman & Alice Hattrick
‘Slagman’s photographs counteract the medical narrative as well as the medical gaze.’
Alice Hattrick introduces photography by Julian Slagman.
Essays & Memoir|Granta 161![padlock](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%200%200'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Essays & Memoir|Granta 161![padlock](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%200%200'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
These Stolen Twins
Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow
‘In our household there was no distinction of feeling between those who were biologically related and those who were simply instructed to regard each other as such.’
Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow on growing up with foster siblings.
Essays & Memoir|Granta 161![padlock](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%200%200'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Essays & Memoir|Granta 161![padlock](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%200%200'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Captions
Andrew Miller
‘I note that my brother – he’ll deny it but he was always the moody one – has apparently refused to take Granny’s hand.’
Andrew Miller reflects on three family photographs.
Essays & Memoir|Granta 161
Essays & Memoir|Granta 161
The Pain Cave
Lauren Groff
‘I would rather have died of hypothermia than let my siblings win.’
Lauren Groff on competitiveness.
Essays & Memoir|Granta 161
Essays & Memoir|Granta 161
Ray & Her Sisters
Sara Baume
‘Ray is the only sister to win a scholarship to boarding school.’
Sara Baume tells the story of her grandmother’s life.
Essays & Memoir|Granta 161
Essays & Memoir|Granta 161
My Eye
Suzanne Brøgger
‘You were Father’s and I was Mother’s.’
Memoir by Suzanne Brøgger, translated from the Danish by Caroline Waight.
Essays & Memoir|Granta 161
Essays & Memoir|Granta 161
Speaking Brother
Will Harris
‘I don’t have a brother; I’m an only child. But a few years ago I started writing poems in which a brother appears.’
Will Harris on why he created a brother.
Poetry|Granta 161
Poetry|Granta 161
Brother Poem
Will Harris
‘Our snapped-off shadows / made a simple shape / one within the other like / a folded napkin’
Poetry by Will Harris.
Essays & Memoir|Granta 161![padlock](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%200%200'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Essays & Memoir|Granta 161![padlock](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%200%200'%3E%3C/svg%3E)
The Erl-King
Emma Cline
‘He was our younger sister’s baby – her and her husband’s baby, I guess. They were young parents and excessively chill.’
Memoir by Emma Cline.
The Online Edition
Essays & Memoir|The Online Edition
Notes on Craft
Lee Lai
‘I’ve loved experiencing the page as a map, as something to be wandered across.’
Lee Lai on the function of page and panel in comics.
Essays & Memoir|The Online Edition
Notes on Craft: Does this Count?
Ben Pester
‘Is the act of complicating a perfectly nice daydream a craft?’
Ben Pester on the craft of imagination.
Essays & Memoir|The Online Edition
Notes on Craft
K Patrick
‘I don’t know anything except my own body. When writing poetry, that’s the only place I can start from.’
K Patrick on writing the queer body.