Granta 89: The Factory

Description

Britain invented the factory -- Manchester was the world's first factory-city. Where are they now, and the world of work that went with them? The answer, mainly, is China. An issue devoted to how and where we made and make things, from strawberries in the fields of Herefordshire to the car plants of Korea. Featuring Isabel Hilton in the new factories of China, Joe Sacco on Chechen rebels living in an abandoned dairy factory, Andrew Martin in the chocolate factories of York, Neil Steinberg on the last lamps in Chicago, Des Barry on Merthyr Tydfil- the old Hoover factory where his father worked, Liz Jobey on turning a factory into a home and Luc Sante on the boredom of factory work. Plus new fiction by James Lasdun and Tessa Hadley. With a picture essay on a Rust Belt factory of the American midwest by Alec Soth.

Ian Jack edited Granta from 1995 to 2007, having previously edited the Independent on Sunday. He has written on many subjects, including the Titanic, Kathleen Ferrier, the Hatfield train crash and the three members of the IRA active-service unit who were killed on Gibraltar. He is the editor of The Granta Book of Reportage and The Granta Book of India, and the author of a collection of journalism, The Country Formerly Known as Great Britain. He is working, not very quickly, on a book about the River Clyde.