When literary magazine McSweeney’s Quarterly jumped into the newspaper business for their winter issue, much of the buzz was about the concept. A literary quarterly does a newspaper? Layout was debated, along with cost and replicability. But inside “Panorama” lurked a delightful, messy nonfiction narrative by Wajahat Ali. “Wells Fargo, You Never Knew What Hit You” stars [...]
Monthly Archives: March 2010
Walk on the wild side: animal stories that don’t stand up
When it comes to wildlife narratives, writer Bryan Christy wants more accountability from reporters. Christy wrote us in response to our Friday issue of the Narrative Digest, which featured coverage of a zoo, a history of animal experimentation, and an essay on a vet in Sierra Leone, among other articles. He added another a item to the list of issues raised [...]
Aminatta Forna interview on “The Last Vet”
We recently talked with Aminatta Forna about her Granta essay “The Last Vet,” which follows the work of Dr. Gudush Jalloh in his clinic at Freetown, Sierra Leone. Forna, who has produced television programs, written a memoir and penned prize-winning fiction, uses her piece on Jalloh to consider the treatment of dogs in one of [...]
Aminatta Forna’s “The Last Vet”: a dog’s life
Our latest Notable Narrative traces relations between humans and animals in the poorest country on earth. In “The Last Vet,” which appeared in the winter 2009 issue of Granta, writer Aminatta Forna follows Dr. Gudush Jalloh, the last veterinarian in private practice in Sierra Leone, as he treats and sterilizes dogs at his Freetown clinic. [...]
Chris Jones, Roger Ebert and the possibilities of online narrative (or “does this story ever end?”)
When it comes to writing profiles, Esquire’s Chris Jones is used to getting the last word. But a few weeks ago, when Jones worked his storytelling mojo on Roger Ebert, he took on someone who had his own platform and his own audience. “I knew Roger was writing about the story,” Jones told us via [...]
