Twelve Post-War Tales : ‘A marvel of the storyteller’s art’, Financial Times

Published 08/05/2025 | Hardback,
Description:

The remarkable new work of fiction from the Booker Prize-winning author of Last Orders, Waterland and Mothering Sunday ‘His archly modulated, precise prose, reminiscent at times of his friend Kazuo Ishiguro’s, has lost none of its power … immensely readable late-career Swift from start to finish, Twelve Post-War Tales is a marvel of the storyteller’s art.’ Financial Times ‘There can surely be no better contemporary writer to take on history’s circularities that Graham Swift. … “Growing up in the 1950s there was all the evidence of war.” Swift has said. This beautiful cluster of stories shows how vital it remains in recollection.’ Observer ‘Skilful, generous and humane, these 12 tales suggest the complexity and heartbreak of being engaged on such an uncertain journey.’ Guardian ‘The characters in this collection share their thoughts and memories with the reader as though with a close friend, and the warmth of their confidences balances against their sadness. We feel we’ve been in the trenches with them, even when a story has gone no farther than the living room.’ Wall Street Journal ‘[A] subtle, empathic collection written with tenderness and gentle humour’, Sydney Morning Herald ‘[S]ome of Graham Swift’s finest stories. … A clever, subtle and satisfying collection’, NZ Listener’A brilliant, illuminating collection of short fiction, perhaps the author’s best’, Kirkus ‘Humane, deceptively simple and utterly compelling, this might well be Swift’s best book.’ Daunt Books ‘These stories, depth charges of love, anguish, resentment, each in their way relating to the effects of WW2, are so good. Swift at his best – and he’s on top form here – has the humanity and wry humour of William Trevor’, Patrick Gale ‘Quite wonderful. Such grace and clarity – I’m filled with admiration’, Philip Pullman In the aftermath of the Second World War Private Joseph Caan, a young Jewish soldier stationed in Germany, seeks the truth about lost family members; in the 1960s a father focuses on his daughter’s wedding even as the Cuban Missile Crisis brings the world to the brink of disaster; in 2001, while planes fly into the Twin Towers, a maid working for US Embassy staff in London wonders if her birth on the day of the Kennedy assassination shaped her life; and at the height of a pandemic lockdown, Dr. Cole, a retired specialist in respiratory disease, returns to work and recalls a formative childhood encounter with illness and much more. These are just a few of the challenged characters we meet in Graham Swift’s Twelve Post-war Tales.

  Tender, humane, funny and moving, Swift’s latest work of fiction displays his quietly commanding ability to set the personal and the ordinary against the harsh sweep of history. It is an outstanding achievement, confirming his status as one of the great and subtlest voices of our age.

  Praise for Swift’s most recent novel, Here We Are    ‘A magical piece of writing: the work of a novelist on scintillating form.’ Guardian    ‘Here We Are smuggles within the pages of a seemingly commonplace tale depths of emotion and narrative complexity that take the breath away.’ Observer    ‘The book’s power comes precisely from the fact that it performs its magic in front of your eyes, leaving nowhere to hide . . . you wonder how he does it.’ Financial Times    ‘With a wizardry of his own, Swift conjures up an about-to-disappear little world and turns it into something of wider resonance.’ Sunday Times    ‘Swift has no equal in evoking the atmosphere of an era while probing human psychology with irony and tenderness.’ L’Express, France    ‘Swift doesn’t write, he whispers’, Corriere della Sera, Italy    “In a dozen pages Swift can embrace a whole life”, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Germany