Synopses & Reviews
We live today in constant motion, traveling distances rapidly, small ones daily, arriving in new states. In this inaugural edition of
Freeman's, a new biannual of unpublished writing, former
Granta editor and NBCC president John Freeman brings together the best new fiction, nonfiction, and poetry about that electrifying moment when we arrive.
Strange encounters abound. David Mitchell meets a ghost in Hiroshima Prefecture; Lydia Davis recounts her travels in the exotic territory of the Norwegian language; and in a Dave Eggers story, an elderly gentleman cannot remember why he brought a fork to a wedding.
End points often turn out to be new beginnings. Louise Erdrich visits a Native American cemetery that celebrates the next journey, and in a Haruki Murakami story, an aging actor arrives back in his true self after performing a role, discovering he has changed, becoming a new person.
Featuring startling new fiction by Laura van den Berg, Helen Simpson, and Tahmima Anam, as well as stirring essays by Aleksandar Hemon, Barry Lopez, and Garnette Cadogan, who relearned how to walk while being black upon arriving in NYC, Freeman's announces the arrival of an essential map to the best new writing in the world.
Review
Praise for John Freeman[John Freeman] is exactly the kind of intermediary that contemporary writers need . . . There ought to be a hundred more like him.”Los Angeles Review of Books, on How to Read a Novelist
Review
Advance Praise for Freeman'sSomething new is headed our way in the falla new periodical/anthology shaped into form by John Freeman. Here he has assembled and edited a collection of terrific authors who responded to the subject he put forward; Arrival. What a hypnotic set of stories, really linked excursions that have an inexplicable but perfect rightness to their placement within the confines of the cover so that something builds from beginning to end. Open it at page one and just read. An amazing collection of gifted writers. Call it what you will it is simply in its entirety a very good book.”Sheryl Cotleur, Copperfields Books
Synopsis
A new anthology project from renowned and beloved literary critic John Freeman, Freeman's: Arrival collects never-before-published writing from some of the best-known authors working today, each contributing a piece on the theme of "Arrival." Contributors include Haruki Murakami, Louise Erdrich, Dave Eggers, David Mitchell, Elena Ferrante, Kamile Shamsie, Anne Carson, Helen Simpson, and Laura van den Berg, and a photo essay introduced by Barry Lopez. Freemans: Arrival is an essential addition to the library of anyone interested in the best of contemporary fiction.
About the Author
John Freeman was the editor of
Granta until 2013. His books include How to Read a Novelist and
Tales of Two Cities: the Best of Times and Worst of Times in Today's New York. He is an executive editor at The Literary Hub and teaches at the New School. His work has appeared in the
New Yorker, the
New York Times and the
Paris Review.