Brief Encounters

In Granta 75: Brief Encounters, the Irish poet Richard Murphy recalls his meetings with remarkable men, including W.H. Auden, J. R. Ackerley, and Theodore Roethke ("Why are you always praising Robert Lowell? I'm as mad as he is!"); Michael Mewshaw at last runs into his hero, Anthony Burgess; and Norman Lewis anatomizes his short, confusing, and terrifying career as an amateur spy in 1930s Arabia. The issue also features outstanding new fiction by John McGahern, Anne Enright, Jackie Kay, Paul Theroux, and Adam Mars-Jones; Alexander Stille's encounter with Somali's premier poet; the neuropsychologist Paul Broks on the uncertain life of the brain; and Alex Majoli (in photographs) and James Hamilton-Paterson (in words) exploring the hidden world of seaports.