On 23 January, NS culture editor Jonathan Derbyshire will be in conversation with the Scottish novelist James Kelman at the Goldsmiths Writers’ Centre, Goldsmiths, University of London.
Kelman is the author of eight novels, nine collections of short stories and two essay collections. He won the Booker Prize in 1994 for his novel How Late it Was, How Late. He was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize in 2011. In 1994, Angela McRobbie defended Kelman against his metropolitan critics, arguing that they focused on his way with the Scottish vernacular, at the expense of his formal innovations.
Greatness, it seems, cannot be conferred on the writer of the local . . . The myopia and confusion about Kelman arise because he is a “high” formalist, an apparent realist and a very political writer, all at the same time. This is not what the English expect of their writers. It is a blend more typically connected with so-called third-world writers . . .
Kelman will read from his latest novel, Mo Said She Was Quirky, and then talk to Derbyshire about the art of fiction.
The event begins at 6pm. Admission is free. To book your place, click here.
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