Graham Swift
Graham Swift
Graham Colin Swift FRSLis an English writer. Born in London, England, he was educated at Dulwich College, London, Queens' College, Cambridge, and later the University of York...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth4 May 1949
add appear appeared complete happily joined means novels recently seem
There's no such thing as the contemporary novel. Before I seem the complete reactionary, let me add that I've happily joined in many discussions about 'the contemporary novel' where what that usually, unproblematically means is novels that have appeared recently or may appear soon.
days flow ink pen quick straight stuff
The pen is very quick for getting stuff from your brain to the page. I can do hieroglyphics in the margin. There are days when I really enjoy the flow of ink. I mean, nice pen, ink straight on to the page.
danger protecting robust unless vigilant writers
Unfortunately writers take a very small part of the profit on their books, and I think in the e-book world there is a real danger they will take even less, unless they are vigilant and robust about protecting their own interests.
novels time wholly
The novel that's contemporary in the sense of being wholly 'of now' is an impossibility, if only because novels may take years to write, so the 'now' with which they begin will be defunct by the time they're finished.
actual drew means publishing scarcely
One of the things that probably drew me to writing was that it was something you could get on with by yourself. Publishing means going public. But the actual activity could scarcely be more invisible. And private.
emotional hope logic memories reader shift time work
In my work you often get an abrupt shift in time, a jolt. But the emotional logic will take the reader on. I hope. I trust. After all, our memories do not work with any sequential logic.
barely compare effect instant matter novelist novels particular passage reader slowness weeks writer
It can be dismaying, all the same, for a novelist to compare the slowness of the writing with the speed of the reading. Novels are read in a matter of days, even hours. A writer may labor for weeks over a particular passage that will have its effect on a reader for an instant - and that effect may be subliminal or barely noticed.
certain remain somewhere
There is a certain inescapable attachment. If you are born somewhere and circumstances don't take you away from it, then you grow up and remain within it.
dates fictional lives offered soon thrill
There's an undeniable thrill in seeing what's most current in our lives offered back to us in fictional guise, but it soon dates and it's never enough.
begin call certainly connects interested intimate larger life might tend
I tend to begin with what you might call the very small world of personal life. But I am certainly interested in how that small, intimate world connects or doesn't connect with a larger world.
concerned existence few length personal props raising scenery
Because each of those numberless non-participants was doubtless concerned with raising in the flatness of his own unsung existence his own personal stage, his own props and scenery - for there are very few of us who can be, for any length of time, me
character writing treading
When I am writing, I'm very much on the ground, on the same ground my characters are treading.
book pride years
All novelists must form their personal pacts in some way with the slowness of their craft. There are some who demand of themselves a 'rate of production,' for whom it's a matter of pride to complete, say, a book every year.
thinking levels way
As a novelist, I suppose I can say that I'm highly articulate. But I know, as a person, in other ways, I'm not always articulate. I think we are all, from time to time, inarticulate, at some level, about some things.