Read more
James Kelman has made use of the short form all of his writing
life, calling on the different traditions where such stories are central
within the culture, beginning and ending in freedom, the freedom to
create. This collection of nearly a hundred pieces of very
short fiction spans five decades and reveals James Kelman’s mastery of
the form. As ever, Kelman insists on his characters telling their
stories in their own voices, whether in working-class Glaswegian dialect
or the dull menace of bureaucratic babble. Everyday tragedy and bleak
humor color these marvels of narrative efficiency, yet at their core
they are tender and full of human truth.
About the author
James Kelman was born in Glasgow, June 1946, and left school in 1961. He began work in the printing trade then moved around, working in various jobs in various places. He was living in England when he started writing: ramblings, musings, sundry phantasmagoria. He committed to it and kept at it. In 1969 he met and married Marie Connors from South Wales. They settled in Glasgow and still live in the dump, not far from their kids and grandkids. He still plugs away at the ramblings, musings, politicking and so on, supported by the same lady.
