Graham Swift


Graham Swift, British novelist and writer of short stories, was born in London on 4 May 1949 and attended Cambridge University, from which he received a B.A. in 1970 and an M. A. five years later. He attended York University from 1970-73. Until the success of Waterland /1983/, the novel that established his reputation, he taught English part-time at several London colleges (1974-83). Swift was born and raised in London and encountered the Fen country during his Cambridge years. According to a friend who met him during Swift's recent lecture tour in Canada, the novelist himself reports that he learned most of his information about the people and landscape he describes in books. His debut, however was not Waterland but a collection of short stories, Learning to Swim in 1981. He is the author of six novels from which Waterland won the Guardian Fiction Award, Shuttlecock won The Whitbread Prize, The Sweet Shop Owner won the Geoffrey Tait Memorial Prize, and Ever After /1992/, which won the French Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger.
Last Orders /1996/ is Graham Swift's sixth novel, for which he received the Booker Prize in 1996.
With only seven books, Swift has established himself as one of Britain's leading writers. He is considered a master storyteller and an inquisitive, ceaselessly analytical artist - one whose works embrace both the dramatic and the enigmatic.

Graham Swift’s works:
Learning to Swim /1980/
The Sweet Shop Owner /1980/
Shuttlecock /1981/
Waterland /1983/
Out of This World /1988/
Ever After /1992/
Last Orders /1996/


Characters



•Jack Arthur Dodds (deceased) - "Dodds and Son Family Butcher, since 1903".
•Vince Dodds (Vincent Ian Pritchett) - "son" of Jack and Amy. "Dodds' Autos"
•Ray "Lucky" Johnson - "...if you want to put a bet on, he's your man". •Lenny Tate, Grocer - "Gunner Tate, middleweight. Always pissed. Always late". •Vic Tucker, Funeral Director - "...at your disposal". •Amy Dodds - Jack's wife, mother of June (mentally disabled). "...it was hop picking that started it....It's all pickings."
•Mandy Black - wife of Vince. "...a lassie from Lancashire".


The latest Swift‘s novel Last Orders is a surprise in a sense. It is surprising mainly because of the author’s selection of protagonists - they are common and uneducated Londonians who meet to carry out the last order of their deceased pal and that is to dispose his ashes at the end of Margate pier.