Granta 125 | After The War

Lindsey Hilsum returns to Rwanda two decades after witnessing the beginning of genocide. Patrick French writes of a great-uncle whose heroism in World War I left behind a 'saturating cult of remembrance. From air-raid drills in Paul Auster's America to a calf with a broken foot in Herta Mller's Rumania, this is how we live after the war. A powerful new story by Thomas McGuane tells of fraternal rivalry and the truth of a mother’s past. A new essay by Aleksandar Hemon recounts a friend’s separation from his father during the Balkan Wars. Milton Hatoun describes returning to Beirut with his father from Brazil for the first time after the Civil War. 

With new writing by Aminatta Forna, Romesh Gunesekera, A.L. Kennedy, Hari Kunzru, Yiyun Li, Thomas McGuane, poetry by Jean-Paul de Dadelsen, Ange Mlinko and Rowan Ricardo Phillips and photography by Dave Heath and Justin Jin.

Nations are made and destroyed, families are scattered, the boundaries of loyalty are redrawn. From the familial to the global, here is what follows war, brought to life in fiction, memoir, reportage, poetry, and photography.