This book offers a critical reading of the novels of Graham Swift in light of recent developments in literary theory and criticism. It shows how the novels elaborate an ethics of alterity by means of a detailed study of one of Swift s most persistent and fascinating yet all too often ignored concerns: the traumatic experience of reality. Swift s texts evoke the cultural pathologies of a nation (post-war Britain) and an era (modernity) through the narratives of individual characters who are struggling to come to terms with a traumatic personal and collective past. This study charts the entire...