Granta 114: Aliens

First there was the traveller; then the word was emigrants. In America, they turned into immigrants. And today -- in many parts of the world -- they are (we are) aliens. From somewhere else. At odds with and yet fully inside of another culture. At home nowhere.

This new issue of Granta features tales from the constantly shifting terrain of alien culture. Mark Gevisser writes of two closeted gay South African men, whose friendship has lasted five decades, dating back to a regime determined to...