AustLit

Norman MacSwan began his journalistic career in Australia at the age of seventeen. He also worked as taxi driver, insurance salesman and cane cutter before serving in the Pacific during the Second World War. After discharge he returned to journalism and covered the Korean War for Australian Associated Press (AAP), an experience that gave him the background for The Inn with the Wooden Door (1958) a novel loosely based on the life of Australian correspondent Wilfred Burchett (q.v.).

MacSwan went to London in 1952 with AAP and also worked in Jakarta, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. During the early 1960s he was in charge of the agency in New York and was there when the assassination of President Kennedy occurred. He returned to Australia and after a distinguished career retired in 1980 as associate editor of AAP. He lived in Sydney, New South Wales, until his death.