Granta 16

For the last thirty or forty years, it has been a commonplace that science and literature don't mix. But recently science writing has undergone a revival and has come to constitute a literature in itself. What accounts for its sudden appeal? The attraction of facts? Or the possibility that 'facts' are themselves inventions of the most spectacular kind?

This issue is devoted to representing part of this revival. In 'Excesses', Oliver Sacks describes individuals suffering from not only too muc...