Swift, Graham

British author born in Bermondsey, South London. Swift was brought up in a lower middle-class home in Croydon – a happy childhood according to his own account. He attended Dulwich College and then studied for a Bachelor of Arts at Queens' College, Cambridge, graduating in 1970. He then studied at the University of York before returning to Cambridge for his MA in 1975. Swift embarked on his writing career immediately after graduating and worked as an English teacher in and around London between 1974 and 1983 when his career took off. Also in 1983, Granta named him one of twenty "Best of Young British Novelists". Nowadays, Graham Swift is regarded as one of the foremost authors in modern British literature, on the same high level as Kazuo Ishiguro, Ian McEwan and Julian Barnes.