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Jan 1, 1946 — —· 80 yrs

UNITED KINGDOM AUTHOR · FICTION · GENERAL

James Kelman

Also known as: JAMES KELMAN

22
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James Kelman (born 9 June 1946) is a Scottish novelist, short story writer, playwright and essayist. His fiction and short stories feature accounts of internal mental processes of usually, but not exclusively, working-class narrators and their labyrinthine struggles with authority or social interactions, mostly set in his home city of Glasgow. Frequently employing stream of consciousness experimentation, Kelman's stories typically feature "an atmosphere of gnarling paranoia, imprisoned minimalism, the boredom of survival." 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. In 1998, Kelman was awarded the Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland Award.

Glasgow, United Kingdom
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There were bodies strewn throughout the building.

— from Translated accounts

Most acclaimed

#2

How late it was, how late

4.0 (1)

In Scotland, the portrait of a petty crook who had one run-in with police too many. It is a series of reflections as he sits in jail, contemplating his fate. He had been in trouble before, but this time it's different, the latest brawl with police cost him his eyesight. Now in addition to all his other troubles he is blind.

#1

You have to be careful in the land of the free

0.0 (0)

Jeremiah Brown is a man of extremes.So when he nips out for a quick drink on the eve of returning to his native Scotland after twelve years in America, anything could happen. Anything at all. Just one quick drink to help him sleep but there's something about this town and this bar that reminds him of his ex. Soon the memories are flooding in and as the night goes on and the decision to stop smoking looks increasingly ill-timed for a card-carrying alien of questionable politics, Jeremiah getting on that flight tomorrow starts to seem far from certain. Is there any such thing as a certainty? Not tonight. Tonight the only thing certain is that you have to be very careful in the land of the free.

#3

If it is your life

0.0 (0)

Collects short stories that penetrate the minds of characters in such everyday situations as convalescing in a hospital, sitting at a bus stop, and being in a living room with a vacuum cleaner.

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