Smiling in Slow Motion

'The life-affirming expression of an artist engaged in living to the full' The Times

Smiling in Slow Motion is Derek Jarman's last journal, stretching from May 1991 until a fortnight before his death in February 1994.

Gossipy, candid, funny, and, as Jarman’s illness takes hold, powerfully moving

Present on every page is the creative sparkle and compellingly generous spirit of a man who was in every way an uncompromising individual

In these diaries... the artist and film director emerges as a down-to-earth visionary... this perceptive and enjoyable work is something of a miracle

For all his anger, Jarman never seems brutalised. He retains his humanity and his good humour. His is a wonderfully garrulous, mercurial, polymathic daemon

Jarman [is] the sort of troublemaking visionary who one day may be compared with Blake

Derek Jarman was born in London in 1942. His career spanned decades and genres, from painter, theatre designer, director, film-maker, to poet, writer, campaigner and gardener. His features include Sebastiane (1976), Jubilee (1978), Caravaggio (1986), The Last of England (1987), Edward II (1991) and Blue (1993). His paintings – for which he was a Turner Prize nominee in 1986 – continue to be exhibited worldwide, and his garden in Dungeness remains a site of pilgrimage to fans and newcomers alike.