Alasdair Gray

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Alasdair Gray (1994)

Alasdair Gray (born December 28, 1934 in Riddrie , Glasgow , † December 29, 2019 in Glasgow) was a Scottish writer and artist .

Gray's best-known work is his first novel Lanark - A Life in Four Books (1981), which he worked on for over 30 years. In his works he combined realism , fantasy and science fiction . A special feature of his works is the skillful use of typography and the integration of his own illustrations. His political writings support Scottish socialism and Scottish independence . The author Will Self described him as "a creative social scholar with an integrated political-philosophical vision". He called himself a "fat, glasses-wearing, bald, aging pedestrian from Glasgow".

Life

Gray was born in Riddrie, east Glasgow, in 1934. His father was a factory worker and was wounded in the First World War . His mother was a saleswoman. During the Second World War , Gray was evacuated first to Perthshire and then to Lanarkshire . These experiences later influenced his literary work. The family lived in a council estate , and Gray got his first education from a combination of state school, public libraries and public broadcasting - according to Gray, "the kind of education that British governments consider useless today, especially for working-class children." He studied at the Glasgow School of Art from 1952 to 1957 and taught there from 1958 to 1962. During his student days, he began working on his novel Lanark .

After graduating, Gray worked as a set designer and portrait painter and as a freelance artist and writer. His first radio plays and plays were broadcast on radio and television in 1968. Between 1972 and 1974 he was a member of a group of writers organized by Philip Hobsbaum . There he also met James Kelman , Liz Lochhead and Tom Leonard .

Gray illustrated his books himself. His work as a visual artist includes numerous murals and paintings.

In 2001, he ran for the Glasgow University Scottish Nationalist Association's candidate for Rector of the University of Glasgow and was narrowly beaten.

Alasdair Gray was married to Inge Sorenson from 1961 to 1970 and to Morag McAlpine from 1991 to 2014. He had a son (* 1964). Gray lived in Glasgow and died there in late 2019, one day after his 85th birthday, after a brief illness.

Appreciations

AL Kennedy describes why Lanark is part of her library: "Here is Alasdair Gray and his mind-blowing Lanark, which taught me the courage inherent in thinking and creating when I had no courage of my own."

Works

Novels

  • Lanark - A Life in Four Books. 1981.
    • Lanark. German by Bernd Rullkötter. Roger and Bernhard, Hamburg 1992, ISBN 3-8077-0264-4 .
  • 1982, Janine. 1984.
    • Janine, 1982. German by Bernd Rullkötter. Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1989, ISBN 3-7466-1034-6 .
  • The Fall of Kelvin Walker. 1985.
    • A Scot on the way up. German by Bernd Rullkötter. Europe, Vienna 1994, ISBN 3-203-51200-9 .
  • McGrotty and Ludmilla. 1989.
    • McGrotty and Ludmilla or the Harbinger report. German by Bernd Rullkötter. Structure, Berlin / Weimar 1994, ISBN 3-351-02249-2 .
  • Something leather. 1990.
    • Dermis. German by Bernd Rullkötter. Rütten and Loening, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-352-00462-5 .
  • Poor things. 1992.
    • Poor Things: Episodes from the Early Years of Scottish Health Official Dr. med Archibald McBandless. German by Bernd Rullkötter. Roger and Bernhard, Frankfurt am Main 2000, ISBN 3-8077-0343-8 .
  • A history maker. 1994.
    • One who makes history. German by Bernd Rullkötter. Roger and Bernhard, Hamburg 2000, ISBN 3-8077-0324-1 .
  • Mavis Belfrage. 1996.
  • Old Men in Love. 2006.

stories

  • The Star. 1951.
  • Lean Tales. 1985 (with James Kelman and Agnes Owens )
  • Unlikely Stories, Mostly. 1983.
  • Ten Tales Tall & True. 1993.
    • Ten lies and deceit. German by Bernd Rullkötter. Roger and Bernhard, Hamburg 1995, ISBN 3-8077-0294-6 .
  • The Ends of Our Tethers. 2003.

Theater works

  • Dialogue - A Duet. 1971.
  • The Loss of the Golden Silence.
  • Homeward Bound: A Trio for Female Chauvinists. 1973.
  • Sam Lang and Miss Watson: A One Act Sexual Comedy In Four Scenes. 1973.
  • McGrotty and Ludmilla. 1986.
  • Working Legs: A Play for Those Without Them. 1997.
  • Goodbye Jimmy. 2006.
  • Spot. 2008.

Poems

  • Old negatives. 1989.
  • Sixteen Occasional Poems. 2000.
  • Collected Verses. 2010.

Non-fiction

  • Why Scots Should Rule Scotland. 1992.
  • The Book of Prefaces. 2000.
  • Alasdair Gray - A Life In Pictures. 2010.
  • Of Me & Others: An Autobiography. 2014.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Alasdair Gray, the beloved author and artist, has died. In: canongate.co.uk. December 29, 2019, accessed December 29, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Alison Louise Kennedy : Home thoughts, and abroad. In: theguardian.com . February 5, 2013, accessed December 29, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Gray, Alasdair
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Scottish writer and painter
DATE OF BIRTH December 28, 1934
PLACE OF BIRTH Riddrie , Glasgow
DATE OF DEATH 29th December 2019
Place of death Glasgow