Graham Swift is a contemporary writer born in 1949 in the south of London. He belongs to the post-modernist (or contemporary) category writers. He grew up with a true attachment to his physical environment, he loves walking around and feeling he belongs to the place where he is. He was a shy boy and he still shies away from the literary scene and its usual invitations even though he has friends such as Ian Mc Ewan, Martin Amis and Kasuo Ishiguro.
He claims that his childhood was ordinary, he then became a student who showed a deep concern about literature and eventually started writing. His inner life nourishes his creativity and while writing he is engrossed in his story. He uses words as he would do with a brush and some paint, his descriptions look like impressionist paintings. He asserts that his fiction is pure invention leaving no space to autobiographical elements, nor does he leave his plots as an experiment.
As soon as he published his first two novels in 1980 and 1981 he was recognized as a talented writer and his third novel Waterland confirmed he was successful around the world. He has then regularly written novels as well as some short stories. Waterland was adapted into a film by Stephen Gyllenhaal with Ethan Hawke and Jeremy Irons in 1992.
His fiction is inspired by Dickens and Faulkner, but also Shakespeare’s tragedies.
Furthermore as he grew up with the physical evidence of WWII, his novels are often marked by the horrors of both world wars or based on the structural changes that occured after the industrial and cultural revolution. The writer voluntarily mixes history and personal stories to recreate the notion of time passing and its cycle, he stretches time or concentrates it playfully to convey deep emotions to the reader. As for his characters, he makes them appear uncomfortable, unhappy but vivid, and he reveals their dignity or heroism afterwards.
To conclude, Graham Swift’s art consists in “making ordinary words do extraordinary things” (by himself!), this seems a good summary of his talent and humility.
Shy : timide
Inner : intérieur
Engrossed : absorbé, captivé
To assert : affirmer
To stretch : étirer
To convey : transmettre
Vivid : vivant
