In this issue of Granta Magazine, a distinguished writer makes an anonynous confession and defends a habit: his son supplies him with ecstasy. Other contributions include Nicholas Shakespeare on discovering the evil of his ancestors, and works from Amanda Hopkinson and Andrew Brown.

Granta magazine publishes the best of fiction, memoir, reportage and photography, Every issue of Granta is in print and many issues - such as 'Travel', 'Dirty Realism', 'The Family', 'India' and 'Unbelievable' - are classics. Granta only publishes work that has never been published anywhere before. So anyone reading us would have discovered (among others) Bill Bryson, Hanif Kureishi, Louis de Bernieres, Arundhati Roy and Zadie Smith - long before anyone else. Every issue of Granta is special. That's why it's published four times a year - to keep it that way.