Whether the 2003 issue will prove as prophetic as its predecessors remains to be seen. It includes some wonderful writing--Ben Rice's story of marital crises among Koi fanciers, "Look at Me, I'm Beautiful!" is particularly memorable--and some uneven ventures, such as AL Kennedy's "Room 506" a novel excerpt narrated by a chronic amnesiac, and Hari Kunzru's "Lila.exe" an account of the development of a Bollywood-inspired computer virus.

Regular Granta readers will recognise a number of the featured writers, including contributing editor Andrew O'Hagan. Most of these authors have yet to attain worldwide fame, although the ubiquitous Zadie Smith is represented with an excellent short story. The scope of the issue generally lies within Granta's house style--well-written, somewhat conservative realist fiction--although there are a few excursions into weirder territory, such as Toby Litt's baroque essay-story, "The Hare" and Robert McLiam Wilson's magic realist "The Dreamed" in which war dead are rematerialised and resurrected in the bed of an aging English man.

The practice of showcasing novelists through a selection of short stories, novel excerpts and works-in-progress is obviously a compromise, as only those writers who are particularly skilled at short fiction will be seen at their best. Teasers are never as satisfying as completed works and a few contributors--such as Sarah Waters and Alan Warner--don't come off as well as they might, simply because their excerpts cry out for context. Anyone who is particularly interested in new British fiction would do well to regard this issue as a reading list, not a representative anthology, even though a number of delights are to be found within. --Jack Illingworth, Amazon.ca

Synopsis
Twice before - in 1983 and 1993 - Granta has chosen twenty writers under forty whose writing represents the best promise or achievement in British fiction. Twenty years ago that list included Martin Amis, Ian McEwan, Salman Rushdie, Graham Swift, Pat Barker. Who are their equivalents today? Granta's panel of judges will announce its answer in January 2003. Previous experience suggests it might be controversial, but there will be no more definitive selection than Granta's. 1983 Martin Amis, Pat Barker, Julian Barnes, Ursula Bentley, William Boyd, Buchi Emecheta, Maggie Gee, Kazuo Ishiguro, Alan Judd,Adam Mars-Jones, Ian McEwan, Shiva Naipaul, Philip Norman, Christopher Priest, Salman Rushdie, Lisa St Aubin de Teran, Clive Sinclair, Graham Swift, Rose Tremain, A. N. Wilson 1993 Iain Banks, Louis de Bernieres, Anne Billson, Tibor Fischer, Esther Freud, Alan Hollinghurst, Kazuo Ishiguro, A.L. Kennedy, Philip Kerr, Hanif Kureishi, Adam Lively, Adam Mars-Jones, Candia McWilliam, Lawrence Norfolk, Ben Okri, Caryl Phillips, Will Self, Nicholas Shakespeare, Helen Simpson, Jeanette Winterson