What happens after you fall in love? The essays and fiction in this issue of Granta look at the risk and reward of loving someone. 'Whatever Happened to Interracial Love' by the late African-American filmmaker Kathleen Collins, captures the atmosphere of the Civil Rights movement in New York and the dangerous risks taken by its activists. In an iconic essay 'Africa's Future Has No Place for Stupid Black Men' young Nigerian writer Pwaangulongii Daoud delivers a passionate elegy for his friend C-Boy, a gay activist in homophobic Nigeria. And Claire Hajaj describes a perilous journey from Raqqa to Allepo to Beirut, for a refugee from Islamic State. Suzanne Brgger describes the pain of being stalked; Emma Cline depicts a taut sibling relationship; Steven Dunn on a violent childhood; and Gwendoline Riley on first love. Also in this issue: FICTION Patrick Flanery, Victor Lodato; POETRY Vahni Capildeo, Melissa Lee-Houghton, Sylvia Legris and Hoa Nguyen; PHOTOGRAPHY Jacob Aue Sobol with an introduction by Joanna Kavenna

A hostile mother-daughter relationship stands at the center of this astonishing, blackly humorous novel by the acclaimed author of First Love. Helen Grant is a mystery to her daughter. An extrovert with few friends who has sought intimacy in the wrong places, a twice-divorced mother of two now living alone surrounded by her memories, Helen (known to her acquaintances as “Hen”) has always haunted Bridget. Now, Bridget is an academic in her forties. She sees Helen once a year, and considers the problem to be contained. As she looks back on their tumultuous relationship—the performances and small deceptions—she tries to reckon with the cruelties inflicted on both sides. But when Helen makes it clear that she wants more, it seems an old struggle will have to be replayed. From the prize-winning author of First Love, My Phantoms is a bold, heart-stopping portrayal of a failed familial bond, which brings humor, subtlety, and new life to the difficult terrain of mothers and daughters.

Set in a decaying town in southern West Virginia, Potted Meat follows a young Aftican-American boy into adolescence as he struggles with abusive parents, poverty, alcohol addiction, and racial tensions.

WINNER of the 2017 Firecracker Award for Nonfiction from CLMP A collection of linked essays concerned with the life and mind of the writer by one of the most original voices in contemporary literature. Each essay takes a day as its point of inquiry, observing the body as it moves through time, architecture, and space, gradually demanding a new logic and level of consciousness from the narrator and reader.

A classic account of life under Nazism and Stalinism that will appeal to fans of Alone in Berlin and Stasiland.

From the bestselling author of The Girls comes a “brilliant” (The New York Times) story collection exploring the dark corners of human experience. “Daddy’s ten masterful, provocative stories confirm that Cline is a staggering talent.”—Esquire NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY An absentee father collects his son from boarding school after a shocking act of violence. A nanny to a celebrity family hides out in Laurel Canyon in the aftermath of a tabloid scandal. A young woman sells her underwear to strangers. A notorious guest arrives at a placid, not-quite rehab in the Southwest. In ten remarkable stories, Emma Cline portrays moments when the ordinary is disturbed, when daily life buckles, revealing the perversity and violence pulsing under the surface. She explores characters navigating the edge, the limits of themselves and those around them: power dynamics in families, in relationships, the distance between their true and false selves. They want connection, but what they provoke is often closer to self-sabotage. What are the costs of one’s choices? Of the moments when we act, or fail to act? These complexities are at the heart of Daddy, Emma Cline’s sharp-eyed illumination of the contrary impulses that animate our inner lives.

Haroun's father is the greatest of all storyletters. His magical stories bring laughter to the sad city of Alifbay. But one day something goes wrong and his father runs out of stories to tell. Haroun is determined to return the storyteller's gift to his father. So he flies off on the back of the Hoopie bird to the Sea of Stories - and a fantastic adventure begins.

"Part treatise, part memoir, part call to action, Tell Me How It Ends inspires not through a stiff stance of authority, but with the curiosity and humility Luiselli has long since established." —Annalia Luna, Brazos Bookstore "Valeria Luiselli's extended essay on her volunteer work translating for child immigrants confronts with compassion and honesty the problem of the North American refugee crisis. It's a rare thing: a book everyone should read." —Stephen Sparks, Point Reyes Books "Tell Me How It Ends evokes empathy as it educates. It is a vital contribution to the body of post-Trump work being published in early 2017." —Katharine Solheim, Unabridged Books "While this essay is brilliant for exactly what it depicts, it helps open larger questions, which we're ever more on the precipice of now, of where all of this will go, how all of this might end. Is this a story, or is this beyond a story? Valeria Luiselli is one of those brave and eloquent enough to help us see." —Rick Simonson, Elliott Bay Book Company "Appealing to the language of the United States' fraught immigration policy, Luiselli exposes the cracks in this foundation. Herself an immigrant, she highlights the human cost of its brokenness, as well as the hope that it (rather than walls) might be rebuilt." —Brad Johnson, Diesel Bookstore "The bureaucratic labyrinth of immigration, the dangers of searching for a better life, all of this and more is contained in this brief and profound work. Tell Me How It Ends is not just relevant, it's essential." —Mark Haber, Brazos Bookstore "Humane yet often horrifying, Tell Me How It Ends offers a compelling, intimate look at a continuing crisis—and its ongoing cost in an age of increasing urgency." —Jeremy Garber, Powell's Books