The power of Granta’s gift to British writers

Philip Hensher was one of Granta’s 20 under forty in 2003, so what does he make of the new list? Writing in this week’s Spectator, he says that there are a dozen competent to superb writers on the list but you can keep the rest.

‘When you look at the seven truly regrettable inclusions it is hard to know what the judges were thinking of.’

Philip’s view is that the list ‘seems to have sprung from a list-making corporate machine’ in favour of bland orthodoxy. Philip writes:

‘Previous British lists have had the genuine air of discovery, sometimes uncomfortably so, as the magazine had to feature writers with more comic gusto or who were more politically unorthodox than they would normally publish… Though [the list] contains a good number of excellent novelists, there are some very poor ones here, too. We’re not talking about taste, but about technical command. Authors who demonstrably can’t write dialogue, handle a point of view, create incident or distinguish characters should not have been included.’