America's original literary city - its bare-knuckled, wind-chapped, broad-shouldered, metropolis by the lake - is viscerally conjured by the world's best writers.
Saul Bellow and Ernest Hemingway grew up there. The eight-hour work day, the Ponzi scheme and the rhythm and blues have risen from its streets. But Chicago is not just a city of the past. In this dynamic issue, Granta brings the one-time industrial hub to life through the eyes of exciting new writers, from homegrown stars like George Saunders and Dave Eggers, to immigrants who have come to the city from Bosnia, South Korea and Ethiopia.
In this issue, Aleksandar Hemon plays football with Italians and Tibetans along lakeshore drive. Booker prize finalist Hisham Matar recalls moving to the city to join one of its storied architecture firms. Richard Powers recollects the flood of 1992, and Don DeLillo remembers Nelson Algren. Plus Sara Paretsky meditates on a police torture case and Dinaw Mengestu describes moving back home to run his dying father's messenger business.
Finally, a trio of internationally acclaimed writers will think about the city's most visible current son: Barack Obama. Out of these stories - which will be wrapped in a beautiful cover by Chris Ware - will arise a vivid portrait of a city remaking itself: a city shredded by violence but poised for a new future; a city that once again has a legitimate claim to being the home of the world's best writers.
