I often refer to my university days as the best three years of my life.

Part of that was finding a voice to talk about literature. Mostly, though, it was being introduced to huge numbers of new voices, finding new literary ‘friends’ and new favourite works.

‘A Modest Proposal’ wasn’t a set text itself, but it was included in a huge set volume (The Norton Anthology, for those in the know). So I read it ‘cold’ … without direction, spoilers, or any idea why it was apparently ‘canonical’.

I remember gasping at Swift’s audacity, then laughing out loud at the sheer chutzpah of the whole thing. Being such a short work, it ended all too soon (although part of its success relies on its brevity), and I like to think I remember slowing down, wanting to savour every little bit of those few pages.

Until then, I hadn’t properly understood that writing like this was possible.

Swift was writing about starvation in Ireland. Apt subject matter for an angry diatribe. Had he done so in a more conventional fashion, I suspect far fewer people would be reading it in 2026. Instead, he addressed the issue through the voice of a gentleman whose comfortable distance from the suffering around him is precisely the point. The impact lies not simply in the ‘modest’ proposal, but in the confidence, and the reasonable language and rhetoric, used to advance it.

This piece has remained a favourite, and an influence, too.

Not least in my work with students.

I have a particular fondness for playing Devil’s Advocate, which I tend to call putting my ‘mischief hat’ on. Often, students come to me feeling tentative, unused to being asked what they think or (crucially) to justify the opinions they express. To achieve the very best marks, they need to feel that they can take intellectual risks, change their minds, and disagree with me without fear of getting it wrong.

When I’m writing for them, Swift is (even subconsciously) haunting proceedings. I want (sometimes I need) to provoke that same reaction in them: a gasp, followed by laughing outrage (and what an effective oxymoron that is when you want to get someone’s attention).

Be warned: at GCSE, if you’ve got a favourite animal, odds are quite good I might write a polemic against it for you to respond to …

Example? A favourite is ‘What is the point of dogs?’

I can imagine huge numbers of you mentally listing your reasons for disagreeing, whether you get in touch to express them or not. Even before you read the rest of what I have to say. Mission accomplished.

Elsewhere, I curate what I call ‘lively’ writing to show them. In fact, I found a new author for them a few days ago. I think Swift would enjoy Sarah Dempster’s takedown of the new Treasure Island adaptation. And if he didn’t (students, take note), he could always head in the direction of Marina Hyde.

Swift has influenced my away-from-work reading tastes, too.

In terms of the intoxicating cocktail of anger, satire, and humanity, I struggle to think of a modern writer closer to Swift than Terry Pratchett. Both understood that humour can expose the absurdities of power and the cruelties we learn to accept, while never losing sight of the human beings on the receiving end.

Now and again, I’m asked to name a favourite literary character.

For many years, the answer has been Sam Vimes, who, in the course of several of Pratchett’s Discworld novels, rises from a disillusioned, depressed drunk marking time on the Night Watch to His Grace, His Excellency, the Duke of Ankh, Commander Sir Samuel Vimes.

Some things never change the man, though: his integrity, humanity and his anger at injustice. Pratchett makes us laugh (a lot), but he also makes us uncomfortable, and leaves us with something we can’t ignore.

Of course, I don’t pretend to be Swift myself, and students don’t need to be. But writing satire can be fun, and understanding how it works, seeing a masterclass in it? It has to be Swift and ‘A Modest Proposal’.

Over to you: tell me about your favourite texts which get serious messages across in light-hearted ways.