Bananas (literary magazine)

Bananas is a British literary magazine that ran for 25 issues from January 1975 until 1979. It was initially published and edited by the novelist Emma Tennant but later issues were published and edited by the poet Abigail Mozley. Tennant chose to name the magazine after the motion picture Bananas (1971), directed by Woody Allen.

Quality and innovation helped to distinguish Bananas, but the magazine also appeared in an unusual format, that of a tabloid newspaper. Tennant believed this lent Bananas’ literary content more immediacy and addressed the readership’s appetite for culture in a contemporary media form. Tennant has said, “Bananas had a long-term effect on British literary audiences by taking the word ‘Review’ away from the concept of a literary magazine and insisting on original fiction; it insisted too on wit and jokes and irreverence.”

Contributors to Bananas included Angela Carter (who originally wrote the short story "The Company of Wolves" for the magazine), Heathcote Williams, Ruth Fainlight and Ted Hughes. Work by Claud Cockburn, Beryl Bainbridge, Harold Pinter, Sara Maitland, Bruce Chatwin, Peter Wollen and Philip Roth also featured. Several writers strongly associated with the speculative fiction magazine New Worlds found themselves welcomed to Bananas’ convention-challenging approach. Tom Disch and John Sladek were among these and J. G. Ballard was both a contributing editor and a constant presence, providing a short story for each issue.

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