Graham Swift
born May 4, 1949, London, Eng.
English novelist and short-story writer
whose subtly sophisticated psychological
fiction explores the effects of history,
especially family history, on contemporary
domestic life.
Swift grew up in South London and was
educated at Dulwich College, York
University, and Queens’ College, Cambridge
(B.A., 1970; M.A., 1975). His first novel,
The Sweet-Shop Owner (1980), juxtaposes the
final day of a shopkeeper’s life with
memories of his life as a whole. Shuttlecock
(1981) concerns a police archivist whose
work uncovers conflicting information about
his father’s mental illness and involvement
in World War II.
After the publication of Learning to
Swim, and Other Stories (1982), Swift
released what was then his most highly
regarded novel, Waterland (1983; filmed
1992). The story centres on a history
teacher who is obsessed with local history
and his family’s past. Swift’s other novels
include Out of This World (1988), a
metaphysical family saga, and Ever After
(1992), the story of a man preoccupied with
the life of a 19th-century scholar. His
subtle, beautifully written Last Orders
(1996) won the prestigious Booker Prize. In
2003 he published The Light of Day, which
explores a private investigator’s
relationship with a client convicted of
murdering her husband. Swift’s novel
Tomorrow (2007) returns to themes of the
family as a woman lies awake, thinking to
the following day when she must reveal a
long-suppressed, life-altering truth to her
twin children.
