1. Graham Swift: Ever After Anička Fedorová Magda Valdová

2. Contemporary literature ● Tom Stoppard, Arcadia (1993): concerns the relationship between past and present ● Nick Hornby, About a boy (1998): a failed suicide attempt ● Ian McEwan, Atonement (1998): a story in the past narrated in present ● Harlan Coben, Gone for Good (2002) ● Nancy Huston, Fault lines (2006)

3. Our choice ● well-known British author ● winner of the Booker Prize in 1996 ● other works: ● Last Orders (1996) ● The Light of Day (2003) ● Tomorrow (2007)

4. Graham Swift ● born in London on 4 May 1949 ● educated at Cambridge and York University ● in 1983 first successful novel Waterland published ● 1996 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction ● in 1996 winner of the Booker Prize

5. ” These are, I should warn you, the words of a dead man. Or they are at least – the warning stands – nothing more than the ramblings of a prematurely aged one. ” (page 1) ”I was born in December 1936, in the week that a King of England gave up his crown in order to marry the woman he loved. ” (page 57) Quotation

6. What we want to tell you about the book The a uthor combines two life stories – one from the 1840s and the other from the end of the twentieth century. It is a story of fifty-two-year-old Bill Unwin, who narrates his story after a failed suicide attempt. The story from the 19th century is about a geologist who becomes uncertain in his religion.

7. What we didn't know before we read Ever After Graham Swift ● very often writes about the influence of the past on the present ● has a very absorbing way of writing (e.g. comparison from quotation 2)

8. Conclusion We both found very interesting the combination of two different settings in the time (1840s and 20th century) and the way how the past of your ancestor can have an effect of your own life.

9. Resources ● Swift, Graham: Ever After, Picador 1992 ● http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UI D=5263 ● http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=aut h93 ● http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/577004/G raham-Swift ● http://www.usp.nus.edu.sg/post/uk/gswift/gsov.html ● (all websites accessed 07/12/08)