Alasdair Gray

West side story

25 Jun 2009

For decades, the West End has meant one thing to non-WEndies: Byres Road, and while that esteemed thoroughfare is still geographically pivotal, its tributary roads have formed little communities of their own, each with an increasingly distinctive…

Aye Write!

1 Mar 2009

Now in its fourth year, Aye Write! 2009 promises to be the biggest and best instalment of the Glasgow-based literary festival yet, and - as the name boldly hints - one which continues to blend an appraisal of the wider written world with a strong spine…

The Hot 100 2008

11 Dec 2008

It’s been a helluva year. 2008 has been a time of significant global change, socially, politically and culturally, with Scotland no exception. So here, for your delectation, is The List’s pick of the 100 people, places and things that rocked our world…

Medium of the masses joins debate at Edinburgh Book Festival

Alan Bissett's Festival Blog

20 Aug 2008

17th August This morning I went to see Stella Duffy, Rodge Glass and Will Sutcliffe at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, promoting their new novels. Each reading was an assured affair, Duffy's in particular. Author discussion afterwards was…

Rodge Glass

Analysing icons of football and fiction

14 Aug 2008

‘Faith is something that preoccupies me, definitely, but it is usually the lack of it,’ says Rodge Glass, the Glasgow-based Jewish author of No Fireworks and Hope for Newborns who passed through a staggering range of variously religious, private and…

Alasdair Gray

24 Apr 2008

Sometimes it’s more fun to ignore the explanatory gallery text and have a good look at the work. This seems an obvious enough way of dealing with art objects, but usually makes for lazy viewing and reviewing on the part of the critic. But it is…

Glasgow International Art Festival

10 Apr 2008

‘What we’ve tried to do this year is suggest a loose theme of ‘public and private’, which runs through many of the curated shows,’ says Francis McKee, director of the biannual Glasgow International, talking me through the 70 plus exhibitions, public…

Food For Thought

13 Mar 2008

I generally start the day with a bowl of oatmeal and cold milk for breakfast. Not porridge though – I believe the Scots word for it is ‘drammoch’. I add in some prunes out of a packet, and drink a coffee with milk. For lunch I’ll maybe stop what I’m…

Hitlist - The best exhibitions

18 Oct 2007

• Raphael Danke: Seventh Heaven After recently being taken on as one of the gallery’s roster artists, Raphael Danke’s exhibition of sculptures and collaged photographs at Sorcha Dallas examine abstruse theological ideas and psychoanalytic theories in…

Alasdair Gray

18 Oct 2007

A compelling selection of drawings, prints and paintings by one of Scotland’s most successful authors and illustrators of the late 20th century. The work on display spans 50 years or more, and includes designs from some of the front covers of Gray’s…

Alasdair Gray - art review

4 Oct 2007

To cherry pick from one’s own oeuvre sounds delightfully painful, a self indulgent task requiring sticky fingers and a good eye. It should be someone else’s enviable job, especially when the artist in question is Alasdair Gray, one of Scotland’s most…

Alasdair Gray Interview

20 Sep 2007

Claire Sawers meets Alasdair Gray at his Glasgow home and finds that he has created yet another iconic, naïve and semi-tragic anti-hero.

Merchant City Festival

20 Sep 2007

We’re not short of festivals in Scotland. The months between April and November have begun to feel like one of those Strip the Willows that happen at particularly drunken céilidhs, where you’re buffeted relentlessly between cultural events and…

Ballads of the Book

WORDS & MUSIC

27 Feb 2007

Projects like Ballads of the Book don’t come along very often. And, looking at the roll call of writers and musicians involved, it is easy to see why. It must have been a logistical nightmare getting 54 of Scotland’s finest writers and musicians…

Aye Write! highlights

Write In

12 Feb 2007

Raj Persaud With a twinkle in his eye, the dapper broadcaster, author and psychiatrist entertains with talk about seduction. It’s fine, though, you can trust him, he’s a doctor. Fri 16 Feb, 6pm.

Aye Write!

The write stuff

16 Jan 2007

Aye Write!, the west coast festival which celebrates Glaswegian writing and the best of Scottish and international literature, has cut the red ribbon on its 2007 programme.

Hitlist

The best books, comics and events

1 Sep 2006

Robert Harris The former TV news reporter, current brother-in-law to Nick Hornby and author of bestselling romps such as Fatherland, Enigma and Archangel returns with Imperium, the first of his Roman saga trilogy. Borders Books, Glasgow, Thu 7 Sep.

Alasdair Gray - Lanark (1981)

100 Best Scottish Books of all Time

1 Jan 2005

Alasdair Gray’s Lanark is one of the finest novels written in English. Its unique blend of realism and wild surrealism was greeted with great acclaim when it was first published, especially abroad. In France, for example, it sold out within four weeks…