Granta 176: American Berserk Summer 2026

America was a country dreamed up by religious fanatics and realized through violence. Philip Roth gave a name for this ‘blessed rage for purity’: the ‘indigenous American Berserk’.

On the country’s 250th anniversary, the American Berserk is alive and well. The writers for Granta 176 did not need instruction about where to find it.

With new fiction by Mary Gaitskill, John Jeremiah Sullivan, Amie Barrodale, Halle Hill, Rebecca Curtis, Kathryn Scanlan and Hansen Shi.

In non-fiction, William T. Vollmann takes to the streets of Havana, Antonia Hitchens offers a portrait of the court culture in Washington, D.C., Tao Lin picks up a hitchhiking astrologist.

Photography by Nikita Teryoshin (introduced by Seth Harp) and Zora J Murff (introduced by Ciarán Finlayson).

Poetry by Frederick Seidel, Patricia Lockwood, Osdany Morales, Maggie Millner and Michael Robbins.