Graham (Colin) Swift was born May 4, 1949, in London, England, the son of Allan Stanley and Sheila Irene (Bourne) Swift. His father was a civil servant. Swift attended Dulwich College, in South London, from 1960 to 1967. He earned a bachelor of arts degree in 1970 from Queens' College, Cambridge, and a master of arts degree in 1975 from the same school. From 1974 to 1983 he worked part-time as a teacher of English.

Swift's first novel, The Sweet-Shop Owner, was published in 1980 and records the memories of a dying shopkeeper. It was followed by Shuttlecock (1981), which is also an analytical story about the past. A collection of Swift's short stories, Learning to Swim and Other Stories was published in 1982.

In 1983 Swift had a literary breakthrough with his novel Waterland. A commercial and critical success, it was nominated for the Booker Mc-Connell Prize and was awarded the Guardian Fiction Prize (1983), the Winifred Holtby...