Billed as a relaunch issue of the wide-ranging literary magazine which has secured its following through offering a mixed bag of reportage and new fiction, Granta 62 sets out to juxtapose "two parlous states" - marriage and Indonesia. I'm not so sure the comparison works. However, Richard Lloyd Parry's long article on Indonesia, drawing on his experience of reporting the elections, is solid, responsible reportage, as is Nicholas Shakespeare's businesslike, unfussy article on the late Martha Gellhorn. As a tribute it would certainly have satisfied her, but it also makes the point that Gellhorn's achievements as a journalist were too often over shadowed by her private life, particularly the four years she spent as Mrs Ernest Hemingway. Novelist Shakespeare makes this personalised piece all the more moving through his fond but carefully neutral tone. Elsewhere, novelist Richard Ford points to the myriad of sources a writer calls upon when he addresses the question "Where Does Writing Come From?" No doubt about it, Granta, with its impressive range of regular contributors, knows diversity is the surest route for longevity.
Eileen Battersby