“The
real art is not to come up with extraordinary clever words but to make ordinary
simple words do extraordinary things. To use the language that we all use and
to make amazing things occur.” – Graham Swift
Born on this date in 1949, Swift is
an English writer whose writing has consistently concerned itself with history
and its subtle influences. He is best
known for Waterland, a novel of
landscape, history and family often cited as one of the ten most outstanding
post-WWII British novels. For the past 20
years it has been a regular text used in the English literature syllabus in
British schools.
Waterland
– starring Jeremy Irons – also is one of a number of Swift's books that have
been made into major motion pictures.
Another is the highly popular Last Orders, starring Michael Caine
and Bob Hoskins. Last Orders, about a group of war veterans who live in
the same area of London, was joint winner of the 1996 James Tait Black
Memorial Prize for fiction. 
A well-known public speaker, he said
he’s really rather shy, which is why he chose writing as a career. “One of the things that probably drew me to
writing was that it was something you could get on with by yourself,” he said. “Publishing means going public. But the actual
activity could scarcely be more invisible. And private.”
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