Editing Graham Swift (section)

== Career ==
Some of Swift's books have been filmed, including ''[[Waterland (film)|Waterland]]'' (1992), ''[[Shuttlecock (film)|Shuttlecock]]'' (1993), ''[[Last Orders (film)|Last Orders]]'' (1996) and ''[[Mothering Sunday (film)|Mothering Sunday]]'' (2021). His novel ''[[Last Orders]]'' was joint-winner of the 1996 [[James Tait Black Memorial Prize]] for fiction and a controversial winner of the 1996 [[Booker Prize]], owing to the many similarities in plot and structure to [[William Faulkner]]'s ''[[As I Lay Dying]]''.

The prize-winning [[Waterland (novel)|''Waterland'']] (1983) is set in [[The Fens]]. A novel of landscape, history and family, it is often cited as one of the outstanding post-war British novels and has been a set text on the English literature syllabus in British schools.<ref>[http://www.ocr.org.uk/Images/210249-non-exam-assessment-guide-component-03-literature-post-1900.pdf OCR A Level English]</ref><ref>[http://www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/english/as-and-a-level/english-literature-a-7711-7712/subject-content-a-level/texts-in-shared-contexts AQA]</ref> Writer [[Patrick McGrath (novelist)|Patrick McGrath]] asked Swift about the "feeling for magic" in ''Waterland'' during an interview. Swift responded that "The phrase everybody comes up with is ''magic realism'', which I think has now become a little tired. But on the other hand there’s no doubt that English writers of my generation have been very much influenced by writers from outside who in one way or another have got this magical, surreal quality, such as [[Jorge Luis Borges|Borges]], [[Gabriel García Márquez|Márquez]], [[Günter Grass|Grass]], and that that has been stimulating. I think in general it’s been a good thing. Because we are, as ever, terribly parochial, self-absorbed and isolated, culturally, in this country. It’s about time we began to absorb things from outside."<ref>McGrath, Patrick. [http://bombsite.com/issues/15/articles/769 "Graham Swift"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130116204904/http://bombsite.com/issues/15/articles/769 |date=16 January 2013 }}, ''[[BOMB Magazine]]'' Spring, 1986. Retrieved 2012-11-26.</ref>

Swift was acquainted with [[Ted Hughes]]<ref>{{cite news|first=Maev|last=Kennedy|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/mar/10/grahamswift-tedhughes|title=Graham Swift joins angling partner Ted Hughes in British Library archive|newspaper=The Guardian|date=10 March 2009|access-date=10 March 2009}}</ref> and has himself published poetry, some of which is included in ''Making an Elephant: Writing from Within'' (2009).