Granta 9: John Berger, Boris

Boris is a novella that works on several levels: a love-story, a tragedy, a depiction of pain and self-destruction. It is a moving and strangely understated chronicle of an obsession, but it is an obsession with political and historical implications that extend far beyond its seemingly straight-forward, spartan narrative.

John Berger won the Booker Price for his novel G. He is also the author of the much acclaimed Ways of Seeing and Pig Earth. Boris is his first published fiction in over four years, and its eloquent sadness clearly reaffirms Susan Sontag's claim: 'John Berger writes about what is important, not just interesting. In contemporary English letters he seems to me peerless; not since Lawrence has there been a writer who offers such attentiveness to the sensual world.'