Three years to write but author loved every minute

Novelist David Mitchell is gaining increasing esteem in the literary world. His second novel, number9dream, received the accolade of being Booker short-listed and his latest, third novel, Cloud Atlas, could yet achieve similar status.

The 34-year-old grew up with artist parents and an older brother in Hanley Swan, Upton and then Malvern Wells before moving away: first to Kent University, to Sicily for a year and then Japan for eight years teaching English.

Last September the ex-Hanley Castle High School

l Booker short-listed author David Mitchell a former pupil Hanley Castle High School.

pupil moved with his Japanese wife and two-year-old daughter to Clonakilty in County Cork, Eire.

Cloud Atlas, his latest published achievement, is a beautifully written 529-page doorstopper.

Despite it taking three years to write, he said he has no difficulties with drive or motivation. Indeed he modestly bats away complements by saying: "It's my job".

"It takes no motivation because writing is my vocation and I love it. Discipline is involved in not writing, it involves going down to the supermarket with my wife and daughter, or washing the car."

Made up of separate narratives, Cloud Atlas follows the life-changing turning points of six individuals between the 19th Century to some point in the future.

Mitchell describes the book as like opening a nest of Russian dolls.

"It adds up to an odd sort of novel," he said, "but individually they are distinct as novellas. One of the themes of the novel is the whole span of civilisation. To get that span you need to show the arc of human development over a very, very long time."

While Cloud Atlas has settings far and wide, from America to Australia, Mitchell claims the Malvern Hills and their views are important to his psyche.

Meanwhile, number9dream has been optioned for a film and Mitchell is working on a, as yet unnamed, shorter, more traditional novel which he expects will be published by summer 2005.