Over There

The USA is the world's newest, greatest, and only empire. And, some would say, the world's most insular state as well as the most powerful, never troubling to correct its ignorance of the people and places beyond its borders. Is it a slander? In this issue of Granta, American writers describe their encounters abroad and how they were affected by them, while, in reportage and fiction, outsiders to America come upon the strangeness of the place itself. Including: James Buchan in America's Hometown. Edmund White meets his first European. Paul Theroux as a sexual prisoner in Africa. Nell Freudenberger makes a mistake in Laos. Luc Sante gets that old-time religion. James Kelman in trouble with the natives. With recollections and forecasts from Eric Schlosser, A. M. Homes, Chris Hedges, Paula Fox, Gary Shteyngart, Paul Fussell, Adam Hochschild, J. Robert Lennon, Studs Terkel, Jacki Lyden, Chalmers Johnson and many more. Plus surprising new maps of America by Martin Rowson, a photographic essay by Anthony Suau and new stories by Judith Hermann and Julian Barnes.