Featured on The Book Show on Sky Arts on 12 March 2009.
A rich collection of essays, portraits, poetry and interviews that deal with the author's life and his inspirations as a writer. A very personal book and his first ever work of non-fiction.
From the acclaimed Booker Prizewinning author of Last Orders, this highly personal book is a singular and open-spirited account of a writers life.In Making an Elephant, Swift brings together richly varied essays, portraits, poetry and interviews, full of insights into his passions and motivations, and wise about the friends, family and other writers who have mattered to him over the years. Kazuo Ishiguro advises on how to choose a guitar, Salman Rushdie arrives for Christmas under guard, and Ted Hughes shares the secrets of a Devon river. There are private moments, too, with long-dead writers, as well as musings on history and memory that readers of Swifts novels will recognize and love.Making an Elephant is a book of encounters: between a son and his father, between an author and his younger selves, between writer and reader, and between friends. It brims with charm and candour, and reveals Swifts alertness to experience and his true engagement with words.From the Hardcover edition.
Graham Swift was born in 1949 and is the author of nine novels; two collections of short stories; and Making an Elephant, a book of essays, portraits, poetry and reflections on his life in writing. With Waterland he won the Guardian Fiction Prize, and with Last Orders the Booker Prize. Both novels have since been made into films. Graham Swift's work has appeared in over thirty languages.
