A short history of Granta

The Guardian provides a short history of Granta:

Buford then performed a clever trick. For Issue 7 he seized upon an initiative of the Book Marketing Council to promote the Best of Young British Novelists, and a whole new publishing gimmick was born. The list included Amis, McEwan, Julian Barnes, Kazuo Ishiguro and Pat Barker. This list was repeated a decade later in 1993 (Alan Hollinghurst, Hanif Kureishi and Esther Freud) and 2003 (Zadie Smith, Nicola Barker and David Mitchell), and worked for young American writers as well. To be on this first roster in 1983 promised a certain amount of attention, not least as it was the first Granta to be distributed by Penguin. Adam Mars-Jones, who holds the unique position of being on the list in 1983 and 1993 despite never producing a novel, believes it kept his literary ambitions alive. ‘It certainly helped me stay marginally above freezing point,’ he says. ‘It extended your sell-by date.’