Enkele bijdragen te kort, enkele bijdragen te lang (Murakami, Davis) - soms te licht (want te kort, of gewoon niet goed genoeg (Murakami)), vaak te licht (Eggers), maar net daarom, en misschien ook wel omwille van het thema, een waardevolle bijdrage aan het wereldje van de literaire tijdschriften. Grote namen, focus op fictie, voortbouwend op Granta (minder journalistiek), ik duim nog voor wat venijn, wat schaamrood op de wangen ... Vakmanschap van Aleksander Hemon. Een nieuwe naam: Michael Salu. ( )

I read this as an e-galley, which means I missed out on all the lovely journal experience—the handsome cover, the way pieces look on the page of those nice perfect-bound volumes. But I liked the content very much, and would definitely consider getting hold of the next in the series. There's a bit of a Granta v2.0 sensibility in a good way—strong, eclectic global writing—but, other than a series of short pieces at the beginning, there are fewer "name" writers and more new(ish) talent. And very global representation, much less of Granta's Brit-centricity.

I like a lot of the choices he made in terms of tempo, up to and including ending it with a longish, dryish piece by Lydia Davis on teaching herself Norwegian by reading a 400-plus page experimental Norwegian novel from start to finish. That piece is really kind of marvelous, very meta, because the more she goes on about getting pulled into the minutiae of the language the more the reader gets pulled into the minutiae of her process... it's one of those essays that shouldn't work but does. At least it did for me—it'll probably put off people looking for a more breezy, popular kind of essay. Maybe that's why he put it at the end, so you can just put the journal down if it's not for you and not miss the rest. But I thought it was a slow starter but neat. And the rest of the journal is a lot of fun.

Also: new-to-me essayist Garnette Cadogan. I will definitely be looking for more from him. ( )