In his first-ever work of nonfiction, Graham Swift—Booker
Prize-winning author of Waterland and Last Orders—gives us a highly
personal book: a singular and open-spirited account of a writer’s
life.
Here Kazuo Ishiguro advises on how to choose a guitar; Salman
Rushdie arrives for Christmas under guard; Caryl Phillips shares a
beer with the author at a nightclub in Toronto. There are private
moments with Swift’s father and with his own younger self, as well
as musings—on history, memory, and imagination—that illuminate his
work. As generous in its scope as it is acute in its observations,
Making an Elephant brings together a richly varied selection of
essays, portraits, poetry and interviews, full of insights into
Swift’s passions and motivations, and wise about the friends,
family and other writers who have mattered to him over the
years.