Set in the bleak Fen Country of East Anglia, and spanning some 240 years in the lives of its haunted narrator and his ancestors, Waterland is a book that takes in eels and incest, ale-making and madness, the heartless sweep of history and a family romance as tormented as any in Greek tragedy.

Review

«Waterland, like the Hardy novels, carries with all else a profound knowledge of a people, a place, and their interweaving…. Swift tells his tale with wonderful contemporary verve and verbal felicity…. A fine and original work.»--Los Angeles Times

«Perfectly controlled, superbly written — Waterland is original, compelling and narration of the highest order.» — The Guardian (U.K.)

“Swift spins a tale of empire-building, land reclamation, brewers and sluice-minders, bewhiskered Victorian patriarchs, insane and visionary relicts…. I can't remember when I read a book of such strange, insidious, unsettling power with a more startling cast of characters.” — Books and Bookmen (U.K.)

“Teems with energy, fertility, violence, madness — demonstrates the irrepressible, wide-ranging talent of this young British writer.” — Washington Post Book World

“A formidably intelligent book — animated by an impressive, angry pity at what human creatures are capable of doing to one another in the name of love and need…. The most powerful novel I have read for some time.” — The New York Review of Books

«Waterland appropriates the Fens as Moby Dick did whaling or Wuthering Heights the moors — a beautiful, serious, and intelligent novel, admirably ambitious and original.” — The Observer (U.K.)

“Rich, ingenious, inspired.” — The New York Times

From the Inside Flap

Shortlisted for the Booker, winner of the Guardian Fiction Prize

Graham Swift