In his first-ever work of nonfiction, Graham SwiftBooker Prize-winning author of Waterland and Last Ordersgives 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 musingson history, memory, and imaginationthat 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.From the Trade Paperback edition.