James Kelman

James Kelman (born June 9, 1946 in Glasgow ) is the author of novels, short stories and essays that deal mainly with the life of the working class and lower class in Glasgow.

Writing career

James Kelman began his career in the 1970s as a short story writer that initially appeared in magazines and collected in An Old Pub Near The Angel in 1973 . Together with Alasdair Gray , Tom Leonard and Liz Lochhead, he formed a loose circle of authors from Glasgow. In 1984 he published his first novel, The Busconductor Hines . His national breakthrough as a novelist came with A Disaffection (1989), which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize , and How late it was, how late (1994), with which he finally won the Booker Prize. In 1998, Kelman was named for his short story collection The Good Times . named "Scottish Writer of the Year".

style

In his short stories and novels, Kelman developed a form of thought flow technique that is now typical for him . The texts are therefore kept in a stylized colloquial language and are often interspersed with strong expressions. Kelman thus shaped the style and had a great influence on younger Scottish authors such as Irvine Welsh and Janice Galloway.

Following the announcement of the Booker Prize for How late it was, how late , its typical style caused controversy in the British feature pages . Since the word "fuck" appears around 4,000 times in this novel, it is a shame that the prize goes to this book, according to Booker judge Julia Neuberger.

Works

Short story collections

• An Old Pub Near the Angel (1973)
• Not Not While the Giro (1983)
• Lean Tales (1985) (with Alasdair Gray and Agnes Owens)
• Greyhound for Breakfast (1987) (German greyhound for breakfast , 1993)
• The Burn (1991)
• The Good Times (1998)

Novels

• The Busconductor Hines (1984) (German bus conductor Hines , 2003)
• A Chancer (1985) (German gambler , 1993)
• A Disaffection (1989) (German seven days in the life of a rebel , 1994)
• How late it was, how late (1994) (German late it was, so late , 2004)
• Translated Accounts (2001)
• You Have to Be Careful in the Land of the Free (2004)
• Kieron Smith, boy (2008)
• Dirt Road . Edinburgh: Canongate, 2016

Collections of articles

• Some Recent Attacks (1992)
• And the Judges Said (2002)

literature

• Jürgen Neubauer, Literature as Intervention. Struggles over Cultural Identity in Contemporary Scottish Fiction. Marburg: Tectum 1999
• Mitch Miller & Johnny Rodger: The red cockatoo: James Kelman and the art of commitment , Dingwall: Sandstone, 2011, ISBN 978-1-905207-68-8

Web links

• Literature by and about James Kelman in the catalog of the German National Library