About the Book: Waterland

A much-loved classic of twentieth-century British literature

With an introduction by John Burnside

Shortlisted for the 1983 Booker prize, winner of the Guardian Fiction Prize.

Children, only animals live entirely in the Here and Now. Only nature knows neither memory nor history. But man - let me offer you a definition - is the story-telling animal.

Tom Crick is a passionate teacher, but before he is forced into retirement by scandal, he has one last history lesson to deliver: his own. Spanning more than 200 years in the lives of its haunted narrator and his ancestors, Waterland is a visionary tale of Englands mysterious Fen country. Taking in eels and incest, ale-making and madness, the discovery of a body and a tragic family romance, this is an extraordinary novel about the heartless sweep of history and mans changing place within it.

In the years since its first publication in 1983, Graham Swifts Waterland has established itself as a much-loved classic of twentieth-century British literature. It was shortlisted for the Booker prize, won the Guardian Fiction Prize and has been adapted into a film starring Jeremy Irons and Ethan Hawke.

About the Author: Graham Swift

Graham Swift was born in 1949 and is the author of nine acclaimed novels and a collection of short stories. With Waterland he won the Guardian Fiction Prize (1983), and with Last Orders the Booker Prize (1996); both novels have since been made into films. His most recent novel is Wish You Were Here. Graham Swifts work has appeared in over thirty languages.