Ten Years Later — John Freeman

Ten years later, where are we looking? How do we see things differently?

From Ground Zero to Kampala to London to Mumbai, the echoes are still heard, the impact is still felt. The way we interact, the way we travel, our relationship to media and technology, and the very way we regard the world we live in have all been irrevocably changed.

Granta 116 will examine the consequences of the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, from a global perspective. Rather than recounting where we were when it happened and what we saw, this issue will look at how our lives and viewpoints have been altered since that day.

Declan Walsh reports from the tribal areas of northwest Pakistan: breeding ground for al-Qaeda and current target of U.S. drone strikes. Elliott Woods travels across the U.S., talking to recruits, noncombatants and veterans and taking the pulse of a nation a decade at war. Pico Iyer considers what air travel is like in the post-9/11 security state; Nicole Krauss writes a melancholy, impressionistic portrait of family, war, life and death in Paris. The issue also includes fiction from newcomers Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer and Phil Klay as well as an extract of a new novel by Nuruddin Farah ­ about a man who travels to Somalia in search of his son who has joined the jihadist movement.

Showcasing some of the most insightful essayists, fiction writers, poets and visual artists working today, Ten Years Later will explore the complexity of how we regard an event that forever shifted our conceptions of fear, anger and hope.