Lexington Books
Pages: 190
•
Trim: 6⅜ x 9¼
978-1-4985-6951-4 • Hardback • November 2019 • $100.00 • (£77.00)
978-1-4985-6952-1 • eBook • November 2019 • $95.00 • (£73.00)
Tomasz Dobrogoszcz is assistant professor at the Institute of English Studies at the University of Lodz.
Marta Goszczyńska is assistant professor at the Institute of English Studies at the University of Lodz.
Introduction
Tomasz Dobrogoszcz and Marta Goszczyńska
Part 1: Beginnings and Continuities
Chapter 1: Trauma and Confliction in The Sweet-Shop Owner and Waterland
Philip Tew
Chapter 2: Reticent Detecting: The Evolution of Swift’s (Un)Confessing Narrators
Anastasia Logotheti
Chapter 3: Masculinity as Failure: Male Characters in Learning to Swim and England and Other Stories
Katarzyna Ostalska
Part 2: Progressions and Evolutions
Chapter 4: Nostalgia, Sentiments, and Men in Out of This World
Katarzyna Więckowska
Chapter 5: The Father Delusion in Ever After
Tomasz Dobrogoszcz
Chapter 6: Filming the Unfilmable: Last Orders on Screen
Adam Sumera
Chapter 7: Re-Joycing Tomorrow: Graham Swift, Artificial Insemination, and the Question of Literary Paternity
Donald Kaczvinsky
Part 3: Recent Developments
Chapter 8: Forget ‘Green English Fields’: War(s) in Wish You Were Here
Catherine Pesso-Miquel
Chapter 9: Spectres of Silence in Wish You Were Here
Sławomir Konkol
Chapter 10: The England in Englandand Other Stories
David Malcolm
Chapter 11: Lost for Words: Narration, Language and Communication in England and Other Stories
Marta Goszczyńska
Chapter 12: ‘So How Did You Become a Writer?’: Metafictional Concerns in Mothering Sunday
Bożena Kucała
Over four decades Graham Swift, one of the finest novelists and short-story writers of his generation, has created an acclaimed body of work inhabited by seemingly ordinary people going about their ostensibly unremarkable lives. Quietly unassuming but beautifully wrought and profoundly revelatory, his literary oeuvre invites and rewards critical scrutiny, as this rich and compelling collection of scholarly essays amply demonstrates. The first book in English to be devoted to Swift’s work in more than a dozen years, this illuminating volume traces the author’s preoccupations and investments across the full range of his literary output, while paying particular attention to the as yet underexplored terrain of his more recent works. Scholars and students of this major writer and of contemporary British literature generally will find it an invaluable resource.
— Stef Craps, Ghent University
Reading Graham Swift is a fresh and timely overview of Swift’s writing, offering numerous insightful readings and new interpretations of his work. Its coverage is comprehensive, its scope eclectic, and its publication attests not only to the international appeal of Swift’s fiction, but also to the vibrancy of debate on his work. This collection will add enormously to Swift’s critical reputation as one of the most important British writers of the last fifty years.
— Daniel Lea, Oxford Brookes University