"The real art is not to come up with extraordinary clever words but to make ordinary simple words do extraordinary things. To use the language that we all use and to make amazing things occur.” – Graham Swift
Born in London on May 4, 1949 Swift's writings - especially his novels and short stories - have won much praise and numerous awards. His book Last Orders won the Booker Prize and another, Waterland, was a finalist for that prestigious award. Waterland, Last Orders and two others of his 11 novels - Shuttlecock and Mothering Sunday - have been made into well-received movies
A meticulous and deliberate writer, Swift decries those who say he writes too slow. Besides his novels, he's authored 2 collections of short stories and an award-winning book of essays, portraits, poetry and reflections on his life in writing. He said it can be dismaying for a novelist to compare the slowness of the writing with the speed of the reading because often a writer agonizes for days at a time in crafting a single paragraph. "Literature," he said, "is the voice of the human heart."
"Novels, in my experience, are slow in coming, and once I've begun them I know I have years rather than months of work ahead of me."
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