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Graham Swift
Graham Colin Swift FRSL (born 4 May 1949) is an English writer. Born in London, England, he was educated at Dulwich College, London, Queens' College, Cambridge, and later the University of York. Career Some of Swift's books have been filmed, including ''Waterland'' (1992), '' Shuttlecock'' (1993), ''Last Orders'' (1996) and ''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'' 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. Writer Patrick McGrath asked Swift about the "feeling for magic" in ''Waterland'' during an interview. Swift responded that "The phrase everybody ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shuttlecock (novel)
''Shuttlecock'', described as a psychological thriller, was Graham Swift's second novel, published in 1981 by Allen Lane. It won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize in 1983 and was Shuttlecock (film), released as a film in 1993. Plot Prentis, junior assistant in the 'dead crimes' department of the police archives in London, starts writing a personal memoir almost inadvertently. It is in response to his growing alienation from his wife and children; to regular visits to his estranged father, who has recently become catatonic and is in hospital; and to the confusing situation at work where he suspects his boss, Quinn, of suppressing crucial files in a case he is asked to investigate. Eventually it emerges that the files concern a friend that his father has betrayed and a blackmailer who claimed to have evidence that his father was not the World War II war-hero he claimed to be. Quinn is approaching retirement and has been grooming Prentis to see if he would make a suitably humane su ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Fens
The Fens, also known as the , in eastern England are a naturally marshy region supporting a rich ecology and numerous species. Most of the fens were drained centuries ago, resulting in a flat, dry, low-lying agricultural region supported by a system of drainage channels and man-made rivers ( dykes and drains) and automated pumping stations. There have been unintended consequences to this reclamation, as the land level has continued to sink and the dykes have been built higher to protect it from flooding. Fen is the local term for an individual area of marshland or former marshland. It also designates the type of marsh typical of the area, which has neutral or alkaline water and relatively large quantities of dissolved minerals, but few other plant nutrients. The Fens are a National Character Area, based on their landscape, biodiversity, geodiversity and economic activity. The Fens lie inland of the Wash, and are an area of nearly in Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, and Norfol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ever After (novel)
''Ever After'' is a novel by British author Graham Swift published in 1992 by Picador, containing 'repeated intertextual invocations' of ''Hamlet''. Plot Academic Bill Unwin sits in his college room, recovering from his suicide attempt and thinking back over his life. Starting with his childhood in Paris where his aloof father successfully committed suicide, and his mother had a relationship with an American, Sam who made a fortune in plastics and then became his stepfather. The narration them moves to 1950's Soho where Bill marries Ruth, an actress who later dies of lung cancer. Throughout his life Bill never reconciled himself to his successful stepfather, who attempts and fails to build bridges with Bill. The other strand is the private notebooks of a Victorian predecessor Matthew Pearce which are entrusted to Bill. They notebooks show the breakdown of his relationship with his wife and father-in-law over his unshakeable belief in Darwinism, and Bill tries to square them with h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1988 In Literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1988. Events * March 7 – Nine thousand movie and television writers of the Writers' Guild of America go on strike a day after rejecting a final offer from producers. *May 28– 31 – The first Hay Festival of literature is held in the Welsh Marches. *June – The Panasonic Globe Theatre, Tokyo, opens with an Ingmar Bergman production of Shakespeare's ''Hamlet''. *August 7 – The Writers Guild of America strike formally ends. * November 15 – Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 reforms copyright law in the United Kingdom, with special provision for Great Ormond Street Hospital for sick children to benefit in perpetuity from royalties in J. M. Barrie's 1904 play ''Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up''. *''unknown date'' – Vasily Grossman's 1960 novel ''Life and Fate'' (''Жизнь и судьба'') is published for the first time in the Soviet Union, in the magazine '' Oktyabr'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1983 In Literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1983. Events *April – The Russian samizdat poet Irina Ratushinskaya is sentenced to imprisonment in a labor camp for dissident activity. While there she continues to write poetry clandestinely. *June 2 – The Francophone Senegalese poet and politician Léopold Sédar Senghor becomes the first black African writer elected as a member of the Académie française. *July – Barbara Cartland, who reaches the age of 82, writes 23 romantic novels this year. *November – Bruce Bethke's short story ''Cyberpunk'', written in 1980, is published in ''Amazing Stories'' magazine in the United States and as a novel online, giving a name to the entire science fiction subgenre of cyberpunk. *''unknown date'' – ''Salvage for the Saint'' by Peter Bloxsom and John Kruse is published, as the final book in a series of novels, novellas and short stories featuring the Leslie Charteris creation "The Saint", which sta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1981 In Literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1981. Events *May 31 – The burning of Jaffna Public Library in Sri Lanka is begun by a mob of police and government-sponsored paramilitaries. They destroy over 97,000 volumes in one of the worst examples of ethnic book burning in the modern era. *August – Sefer ve Sefel opens as an English used bookstore in Jerusalem. *''unknown dates'' ** John Gardner successfully revives the James Bond novel series originated by Ian Fleming with '' Licence Renewed'' (not counting a faux biography of Bond and a pair of film novelizations, the first original Bond novel since 1968's ''Colonel Sun''). The revived Bond book series will run uninterrupted until 2002. **Colin MacCabe is denied tenure at the University of Cambridge, apparently because of a dispute within the English Faculty about the teaching of structuralism. **The PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction is given for the first time. New books Fiction *Kingsl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1980 In Literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1980. Events *March 6 – Marguerite Yourcenar becomes the first woman elected to the Académie française. * June 5 **The Royal Shakespeare Company opens a production at the Aldwych Theatre, London, of ''The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby'', adapted from Charles Dickens's novel by David Edgar. **Willy Russell's comedy ''Educating Rita'' opens in a Royal Shakespeare Company production with Julie Walters in the title rôle, at The Warehouse in London. *August 25 – Pramoedya Ananta Toer's '' This Earth of Mankind (Bumi Manusia)'', the first of a tetralogy of historical novels, the Buru Quartet, is published in Indonesia after Toer's release from ten years' political imprisonment. It is banned in the country the following year. *September – A production of Shakespeare's '' Macbeth'' with Peter O'Toole in the lead opens at the Old Vic Theatre, London. It is often seen one of the disast ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Sweet-Shop Owner
''The Sweet-Shop Owner'' is the debut novel of English author Graham Swift. It was published in 1980 to largely favourable reviews.Triumph of the common man from '''', Saturday 1 March 2003 Plot introduction The book is set on a sunny Friday in June 1974 and describes the routine of what turns out to be the last day in the life of Willy Chapman, the eponymous owner of a South London sweet shop. Central to the book is his relationship with his beautiful and yet distant wife Irene who bore him a daughter on the unspoken agreement that no love would be expressed between them. Interspersed with flashbacks to his earlier life, Willy attempts to justify himse ...[...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ted Hughes
Edward James "Ted" Hughes (17 August 1930 – 28 October 1998) was an English poet, translator, and children's writer. Critics frequently rank him as one of the best poets of his generation and one of the twentieth century's greatest writers. He was appointed Poet Laureate in 1984 and held the office until his death. In 2008 ''The Times'' ranked Hughes fourth on its list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945". Hughes was married to American poet Sylvia Plath from 1956 until her death by suicide in 1963 at the age of 30. His last poetic work, ''Birthday Letters'' (1998), explored their relationship. Biography Early life Hughes was born at 1 Aspinall Street, in Mytholmroyd in the West Riding of Yorkshire, to William Henry (1894–1981) and Edith ( Farrar) Hughes (1898–1969), and raised among the local farms of the Calder Valley and on the Pennine moorland. Hughes's sister Olwyn Marguerite Hughes (1928–2016) was two years older and his brother Gerald (1920 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BOMB Magazine
''Bomb'' (stylized in all caps as ''BOMB'') is an American arts magazine edited by artists and writers, published quarterly in print and daily online. It is composed primarily of interviews between creative people working in a variety of disciplines—visual art, literature, film, music, theater, architecture, and dance. In addition to interviews, ''Bomb'' publishes reviews of literature, film, and music, as well as new poetry and fiction. ''Bomb'' is published by New Art Publications, Inc., a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. History ''Bomb'' was launched in 1981 by a group of New York City-based artists, including Betsy Sussler, Sarah Charlesworth, Glenn O'Brien, Michael McClard, and Liza Béar, who sought to record and promote public conversations between artists without mediation by critics or journalists.McClister, Nell"Bomb Magazine: Celebrating 25 Years" ''Bomb'', Retrieved October 13, 2014. The name ''Bomb'' is a reference to both Wyndham Lewis' ''Blast'' and the fact t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Günter Grass
Günter Wilhelm Grass (born Graß; ; 16 October 1927 – 13 April 2015) was a German novelist, poet, playwright, illustrator, graphic artist, sculptor, and recipient of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Literature. He was born in the Free City of Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland). As a teenager, he served as a drafted soldier from late 1944 in the ''Waffen-SS'' and was taken as a prisoner of war by US forces at the end of the war in May 1945. He was released in April 1946. Trained as a stonemason and sculptor, Grass began writing in the 1950s. In his fiction, he frequently returned to the Danzig of his childhood. Grass is best known for his first novel, ''The Tin Drum'' (1959), a key text in European magic realism. It was the first book of his Danzig Trilogy, the other two being ''Cat and Mouse'' and '' Dog Years''. His works are frequently considered to have a left-wing political dimension, and Grass was an active supporter of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). ''The Tin D ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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