Twelve Post-War Tales

(Hardback)

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The remarkable new work of fiction from the Booker Prize-winning author ofLast Orders,Wasteland,Here We AreandMothering Sunday

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 daughters 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 SwiftsTwelve Post-war Tales.

Tender, humane, funny and moving, Swifts 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, most subtle 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.' TheGuardian

Here We Aresmuggles within the pages of a seemingly commonplace tale depths of emotion and narrative complexity that take the breath away. TheObserver

The books 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

Author Bio

Graham Swift was born in 1949. He is the author of eleven novels, three collections of short stories including the highly praised England and Other Stories and of 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. Mothering Sunday became a worldwide bestseller and won the Hawthornden Prize for best work of imaginative literature. All three novels were made into films. His latest novel, Here We Are, was internationally acclaimed. His work has appeared in over thirty-five languages.