From the outset, Swift's novels have all been ambitious in their thematic and narrative scope, and have repeatedly tackled difficult ideas of narrative, history and conflicts between the generations. Many critics and readers saw his coronation with that novel as long overdue acknowledgement of his status as a key voice in contemporary British fiction.

Since being awarded the Booker in 1996 for Last Orders, Graham Swift has been recognised as a premier novelist whose tales of peculiarly English alienation and belonging marry serpentine narrative with psychological richness. Graham Swift is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His first non-fiction book is Making an Elephant: Writing from Within (2009).

His latest novel is Wish You Were Here (2011). Tomorrow (2007), explores complex themes of parenthood, coupledom and identity via the personal thoughts and memories of the protagonist, Paula, as she lies awake one night in bed. His novel, The Light of Day (2003), is the story of a murder, a love affair and a disgraced former policeman turned private detective. A film adaptation of the novel starring Michael Caine and Bob Hoskins was first screened in 2001. Swift's sixth novel, Last Orders (1996), which won the Booker Prize for Fiction and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize (for fiction), recounts a journey begun in a pub in London's East End by four friends intent on fulfilling a promise to scatter the ashes of their dead drinking-partner in the sea. It was followed by Out of this World (1988), the story of a photojournalist and his estranged daughter, and Ever After (1992), in which a university professor makes a traumatic discovery about his career. The book won the Guardian Fiction Prize and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize. These personal memories are woven into a greater history of the area, slowly revealing the seeds of a family legacy that threatens his marriage. Narrated by history teacher Tom Crick, it describes his youth spent in the Norfolk fens during the Second World War. Waterland, his acclaimed third novel, was published in 1983. The narrator of his second novel, Shuttlecock (1981), winner of the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, becomes obsessed with his father's experiences during the Second World War. The first, The Sweet Shop Owner (1980), is narrated by disillusioned shopkeeper Willy Chapman, and unfolds over the course of a single day in June. He was nominated as one of the 20 'Best of Young British Novelists' in the Book Marketing Council's promotion in 1983. He was educated at Dulwich College, Queens' College, Cambridge, and York University. Novelist Graham Swift was born in London in 1949.

Graham swift's waterland