James Kelman
Encyclopedia
James Kelman is an influential writer of novel
s, short stories
, plays
and political essays. His novel A Disaffection was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize
for Fiction in 1989. Kelman won the 1994 Booker Prize with How late it was, how late
and aroused something of a controversy in doing so: one of the judges, Rabbi Julia Neuberger
, denounced the book as 'a disgrace' when Kelman was announced as the winner. Kelman has since said that his Booker prize win, specifically the negative publicity and attacks made as a result, made publishers more reluctant to handle his work. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article6036703.ece In 1998 Kelman was awarded the Scotland on Sunday
/Glenfiddich
Spirit of Scotland Award. In 2008 he won Scotland's most prestigious literary award the Saltire Society's Book of the Year award
for Kieron Smith, Boy (2008)
During the 1970s he published a first collection of short stories. He became involved in Philip Hobsbaum
's creative writing
group in Glasgow along with Tom Leonard
, Alasdair Gray
and Liz Lochhead
, and his short stories began to appear in magazines. These stories introduced a distinctive style, expressing first person
internal monologue
s in a pared-down prose utilising Glaswegian speech patterns
, though avoiding for the most part the quasi-phonetic rendition of Tom Leonard. Kelman's developing style has been influential on the succeeding generation of Scottish novelists, including Irvine Welsh
, Alan Warner
and Janice Galloway
. In 1998, Kelman received the Stakis Prize for "Scottish Writer of the Year" for his collection of short stories 'The Good Times.'
, which they described as promoting the "fallacy that Glasgow somehow exists because of (...) 18th century entrepreneurs and far-sighted politicians. (The merchants) were men who trafficked in degradation, causing untold misery, death and starvation to thousands" The Workers' City group campaigned against what was seen as the victimisation of People's Palace
curator Elspeth King and a Council attempt to sell off one third of Glasgow Green
. Their activities drew the ire of Labour Party councillors and commentators, Kelman, and his colleagues Hugh Savage and Farquhar McLay, being described as "an 'embarrassment' to the city's 'cultural workforce'".
Kelman has been a prominent campaigner, notably in issues of social justice and traditional left wing causes, although he is resolutely not a party man, and remains at his heart a libertarian socialist
anarchist, saying "the parliamentary opposition parties are essential to the political apparatus of this country which is designed to arrest justice". He lives in Glasgow with his wife and children, though has also lived in London, Manchester, the Channel Islands, Australia and America.
In his introduction to Born up a Close: Memoirs of a Brigton Boy (2006), an edition of Glaswegian political campaigner Hugh Savage's writings, Kelman sums up his understanding of the history of national and class conflict as follows:
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
s, short stories
Short Stories
Short Stories may refer to:*A plural for Short story*Short Stories , an American pulp magazine published from 1890-1959*Short Stories, a 1954 collection by O. E...
, plays
Play (theatre)
A play is a form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of scripted dialogue between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference whether their plays were performed...
and political essays. His novel A Disaffection was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize
James Tait Black Memorial Prize
Founded in 1919, the James Tait Black Memorial Prizes are among the oldest and most prestigious book prizes awarded for literature written in the English language and are Britain's oldest literary awards...
for Fiction in 1989. Kelman won the 1994 Booker Prize with How late it was, how late
How late it was, how late
How late it was, how late is a 1994 stream of consciousness novel written by Scottish writer James Kelman. The Glasgow-centred work is written in a working class Scottish dialect, and follows Sammy, a shoplifter and ex-convict.-Plot summary:...
and aroused something of a controversy in doing so: one of the judges, Rabbi Julia Neuberger
Julia Neuberger, Baroness Neuberger
Julia Babette Sarah Neuberger, Baroness Neuberger, DBE is a rabbi, social reformer and member of the House of Lords, where she takes the Liberal Democrat whip, although she will be resigning from the party and joining the Crossbenches from September 2011, once she becomes the full-time Senior...
, denounced the book as 'a disgrace' when Kelman was announced as the winner. Kelman has since said that his Booker prize win, specifically the negative publicity and attacks made as a result, made publishers more reluctant to handle his work. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article6036703.ece In 1998 Kelman was awarded the Scotland on Sunday
The Scotsman
The Scotsman is a British newspaper, published in Edinburgh.As of August 2011 it had an audited circulation of 38,423, down from about 100,000 in the 1980s....
/Glenfiddich
Glenfiddich
The Glenfiddich Distillery is a Speyside single malt Scotch whisky distillery owned by William Grant & Sons in Dufftown, Scotland. Glenfiddich means ‘Valley of the deer’ in Gaelic, hence the presence of a deer symbol on Glenfiddich bottles.- History :...
Spirit of Scotland Award. In 2008 he won Scotland's most prestigious literary award the Saltire Society's Book of the Year award
Saltire Awards
The Saltire Society awards the following literary awards:* Scottish Book of the Year* Scottish First Book of the Year* Scottish History Book of the Year* Scottish Research Book of the Year...
for Kieron Smith, Boy (2008)
Life and work
Kelman says :
My own background is as normal or abnormal as anyone else's. Born and bred in GovanGovanGovan is a district and former burgh now part of southwest City of Glasgow, Scotland. It is situated west of Glasgow city centre, on the south bank of the River Clyde, opposite the mouth of the River Kelvin and the district of Partick....
and DrumchapelDrumchapelDrumchapel , known to locals and residents as 'The Drum', is part of the city of Glasgow, Scotland, having been annexed from Dunbartonshire in 1938. It borders Bearsden to the east and Clydebank to the west . The area is bordered by Knightswood and Yoker in Glasgow. The name derives from the...
, inner city tenement to the housing scheme homeland on the outer reaches of the city. Four brothers, my mother a full time parent, my father in the picture framemaking and gilding trade, trying to operate a one man business and I left school at 15 etc. etc.
(...)
For one reason or another, by the age of 21/22 I decided to write stories. The stories I wanted to write would derive from my own background, my own socio-cultural experience. I wanted to write as one of my own people, I wanted to write and remain a member of my own community.
During the 1970s he published a first collection of short stories. He became involved in Philip Hobsbaum
Philip Hobsbaum
Philip Dennis Hobsbaum was a British teacher, poet and critic.-Life:Hobsbaum was born into a Polish Jewish family in London, and brought up in Bradford, in Yorkshire. He read English at Downing College, Cambridge, where he was taught and heavily influenced by F. R. Leavis...
's creative writing
Creative writing
Creative writing is considered to be any writing, fiction, poetry, or non-fiction, that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, and technical forms of literature. Works which fall into this category include novels, epics, short stories, and poems...
group in Glasgow along with Tom Leonard
Tom Leonard
Tom Leonard or Thomas Leonard may refer to:*Tom Leonard *Tom Leonard , Fianna Fáil politician from Dublin, Ireland*Tom Leonard , Scottish poet*Thomas J...
, Alasdair Gray
Alasdair Gray
Alasdair Gray is a Scottish writer and artist. His most acclaimed work is his first novel Lanark, published in 1981 and written over a period of almost 30 years...
and Liz Lochhead
Liz Lochhead
Liz Lochhead is a Scottish poet and dramatist, originally from Newarthill in North Lanarkshire.-Background:After attending Glasgow School of Art, Lochhead lectured in fine art for eight years before becoming a professional writer....
, and his short stories began to appear in magazines. These stories introduced a distinctive style, expressing first person
First-person narrative
First-person point of view is a narrative mode where a story is narrated by one character at a time, speaking for and about themselves. First-person narrative may be singular, plural or multiple as well as being an authoritative, reliable or deceptive "voice" and represents point of view in the...
internal monologue
Monologue
In theatre, a monologue is a speech presented by a single character, most often to express their thoughts aloud, though sometimes also to directly address another character or the audience. Monologues are common across the range of dramatic media...
s in a pared-down prose utilising Glaswegian speech patterns
Glasgow patter
Glaswegian or The Glasgow Patter is a dialect spoken in and around Glasgow, Scotland. In addition to local West Mid Scots, the dialect has Highland English and Hiberno-English influences, owing to the speech of Highlanders and Irish people, who migrated in large numbers to the Glasgow area in the...
, though avoiding for the most part the quasi-phonetic rendition of Tom Leonard. Kelman's developing style has been influential on the succeeding generation of Scottish novelists, including Irvine Welsh
Irvine Welsh
Irvine Welsh is a contemporary Scottish novelist, best known for his novel Trainspotting. His work is characterised by raw Scottish dialect, and brutal depiction of the realities of Edinburgh life...
, Alan Warner
Alan Warner
Alan Warner , a Scottish novelist, grew up in Connel, near Oban.He is the author of six novels: the acclaimed Morvern Callar , winner of a Somerset Maugham Award; These Demented Lands , winner of the Encore Award; The Sopranos , winner of the Saltire Society Scottish Book of the Year Award; The Man...
and Janice Galloway
Janice Galloway
Janice Galloway is a writer of novels, short stories, prose-poetry, non-fiction and libretti-Biography:She is the second daughter of James Galloway and Janet Clark McBride. Her parents separated when she was four and her father died when she was six. Her sister Nora, sixteen years older, died in...
. In 1998, Kelman received the Stakis Prize for "Scottish Writer of the Year" for his collection of short stories 'The Good Times.'
Political views and activism
Kelman's work has been described as flowing "not only from being an engaged writer, but a cultural and political activist". At the time of Glasgow's Year as City of Culture he was prominent in the Workers' City group, critical of the celebrations. The name was chosen as to draw attention to the renaming of part of the city centre as the Merchant CityMerchant City
The Merchant City is a district in the city centre of Glasgow, Scotland.- History :The medieval Glasgow Cross was located on the road between High Street and Saltgait. Its modern replacement was built to the south-east of the original location to aid traffic. The town's tron was placed on the...
, which they described as promoting the "fallacy that Glasgow somehow exists because of (...) 18th century entrepreneurs and far-sighted politicians. (The merchants) were men who trafficked in degradation, causing untold misery, death and starvation to thousands" The Workers' City group campaigned against what was seen as the victimisation of People's Palace
People's Palace
The People's Palace and Winter Gardens in Glasgow, Scotland is a museum and glasshouse situated in Glasgow Green, and was opened on 22 January, 1898 by the Earl of Rosebery....
curator Elspeth King and a Council attempt to sell off one third of Glasgow Green
Glasgow Green
Glasgow Green is a park situated in the east end of Glasgow on the north bank of the River Clyde. It is the oldest park in the city dating back to the 15th century.In 1450, King James II granted the land to Bishop William Turnbull and the people of Glasgow...
. Their activities drew the ire of Labour Party councillors and commentators, Kelman, and his colleagues Hugh Savage and Farquhar McLay, being described as "an 'embarrassment' to the city's 'cultural workforce'".
Kelman has been a prominent campaigner, notably in issues of social justice and traditional left wing causes, although he is resolutely not a party man, and remains at his heart a libertarian socialist
Libertarian socialism
Libertarian socialism is a group of political philosophies that promote a non-hierarchical, non-bureaucratic, stateless society without private property in the means of production...
anarchist, saying "the parliamentary opposition parties are essential to the political apparatus of this country which is designed to arrest justice". He lives in Glasgow with his wife and children, though has also lived in London, Manchester, the Channel Islands, Australia and America.
In his introduction to Born up a Close: Memoirs of a Brigton Boy (2006), an edition of Glaswegian political campaigner Hugh Savage's writings, Kelman sums up his understanding of the history of national and class conflict as follows:
In an occupied country indigenous history can only be radical. It is a class issue. The intellectual life of working class people is ‘occupied’. In a colonised country intellectual occupation takes place throughout society. The closer to the ruling class we get the less difference there exists in language and culture, until finally we find that questions fundamental to society at its widest level are settled by members of the same closely knit circle, occasionally even the same family or ‘bloodline’. And the outcome of that can be war, the slaughter of working class people.
Short stories
- An Old Pub Near The Angel (1973)
- Not Not While The Giro (1983)
- Lean Tales (1985) (joint volume with Alasdair GrayAlasdair GrayAlasdair Gray is a Scottish writer and artist. His most acclaimed work is his first novel Lanark, published in 1981 and written over a period of almost 30 years...
and Agnes OwensAgnes OwensAgnes Owens is a Scottish author.She was born in Milngavie and spent most of her life on the west coast of Scotland. She has been married twice and raised seven children, also working as a cleaner, typist and factory worker....
) - Greyhound For Breakfast (1987) (winner of the Cheltenham Prize for LiteratureCheltenham Prize for LiteratureThe Cheltenham Prize is awarded at the Cheltenham Literature Festival to the author of any book published in the relevant year which "has received less acclaim than it deserved".-Past winners:*1979 Angela Carter for The Bloody Chamber...
) - The Burn (1991)
- Busted Scotch (1997)
- The Good Times (1998)
- If It Is Your Life (2010)
Novels
- The Busconductor Hines (1984)
- A Chancer (1985)
- A Disaffection (1989)
- How Late It Was, How LateHow late it was, how lateHow late it was, how late is a 1994 stream of consciousness novel written by Scottish writer James Kelman. The Glasgow-centred work is written in a working class Scottish dialect, and follows Sammy, a shoplifter and ex-convict.-Plot summary:...
(1994) (winner of the Booker Prize) - Translated Accounts (2001)
- You Have To Be Careful In The Land Of The Free (2004)
- Kieron Smith, Boy (2008)
Edited
- An East End Anthology, ed. Jim Kelman (1988)
- Hugh Savage, Born up a Close: memoirs of a Brigton boy, ed. James Kelman (2006)
Book-length Critical Works on Kelman
- Dietmar Böhnke. Kelman Writes Back (1999)
- H. Gustav Klaus. James Kelman: Writers and their Work (2004)
- J.D. Macarthur. Claiming Your Portion of Space': A study of the short stories of James Kelman (2007)
- Simon Kovesi, James Kelman (Manchester University Press, 2007)
External links
(includes a "Critical Perspective" section)- How Late It Was, How Late: a play created by Rude Mechanicals in Austin, Texas (2003)
- Make yer point: James Kelman, The Guardian, 11 August 2007 This article has been removed because the copyright has expired.