Scottish Literature

[Tonalli]

I’m not sure if such thread already exists, at least I didn’t manage to find it (though I honestly tried)
Lately I’ve been keen on Scotland, its culture and history. That’s why I’d like to familiarize myself with its literature. I’d be grateful if someone recommended me some good Scottish books and authors, especially the modern ones, of which I only know Peter May and Iain Banks.

 

[Daniel del Real]

You're right, incredibly there's no Scottish literature thread even though this is site is run primarily by a Scottish guy like Stewart. I'm sure he'll be able to give you a lot of names and examples of it. It's a shame he doesn't stop here that often as he used to.

 

[Tonalli]

Yes, it’s a shame. But there’s no haste. I don’t think I’ll run out of items in my must-read list soon. Especially now that I found such an interesting forum.

 

[Stevie B]

You might try a novel by James Kelman if profanity doesn't bother you. He's won multiple awards including the Booker. I'd recommend The Disaffectionist, a novel about an inner city schoolteacher.

 

[kpjayan]

You might try a novel by James Kelman if profanity doesn't bother you. He's won multiple awards including the Booker. I'd recommend The Disaffectionist, a novel about an inner city schoolteacher.

Stevie, the book is called "A Disaffection". I agree with you, he is brilliant.

 

[Liam]

I'll recommend two authors whom nobody has mentioned yet: Lewis Grassic Gibbon and Angus Peter Campbell. The former is best known for his Scots Quair Trilogy comprising of Sunset Song (1932), Cloud Howe (1933) and Grey Granite (1934). This series of novels has been voted "The Best Scottish Book of All Time." The latter is a famous Scottish poet and novelist writing primarily in Gaelic; he's recently written and published two versions of the same novel, one in English, one in Scottish Gaelic: The Girl on the Ferryboat/An Nighean air an Aiseig (2013). Campbell has also been involved with cinema: he plays the Grandfather in the first full-length Scottish Gaelic-language film Seachd: The Inaccessible Pinnacle.

 

[Tonalli]

Stieve, kpjayan, Liam, thank you for your recommendations!

 

[Vazquez]

A book I remember was considered a modern classic in Scottish literature was Lanark from Alaisdar Gray. Never read it, ´though.

 

[AndreC]

I'd consider Sir Walter Scott. 'The Monastary' or 'The Heart of Mid-Lothian' are among many novels he wrote set in Scotland's history. That is if you have any taste for 19th c. romantic novels.

 

[cauldbairn]

BBC Scotland is currently running a poll for the people's favourite Scottish works. The popular vote is still ongoing but the experts' choice for the top novel was An Oidhche Mus Do Sheol Sinn (The Night Before We Sailed) by Angus Peter Campbell. http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2016/Scotlands-Favourite-Book

I need to get on to reading Muriel Spark and John Buchan at some stage in particular.

 

[Patrick Murtha]

Hugh Munro (1909-82) was distantly related to Neil Munro. In addition to writing for boys’ adventure magazines, he published seven crime novels featuring his sleuth Clutha, who starts as a Glasgow shipyard detective, and three “straight” novels about Scottish life (which I’m on the hunt for). I am reading the first Clutha just now, and it is a lot of fun; the shipyard setting is distinctive. Lots of industrial detail!

https://bearalley.blogspot.com/2010/10/hugh-munro.html

 

[Liam]

 

[Ben Jackson]

One country that I haven't read so much from apart from Carol Ann Duffy's Rapture, which is a good collection and two novels of Louis Stevenson. Still have Hogg, Carlyle, Muriel Spark, MacDiarmid, Ali Smith and Robert Burns and non-fiction writers like James Frazer, Adam Smith, Hume, Macfarlane.

 

[kpjayan]

Scottish literature: What is it and who needs it?​

Policymakers rarely show or act upon good knowledge of Scottish culture and history

INTERVIEWED on BBC2’s Newsnight programme on November 29, 2011, I was asked by the broadcaster Gordon Brewer a most egregious question; in what I…

www.thenational.scot

 

[Leseratte]

Scottish literature: What is it and who needs it?​

Policymakers rarely show or act upon good knowledge of Scottish culture and history

INTERVIEWED on BBC2’s Newsnight programme on November 29, 2011, I was asked by the broadcaster Gordon Brewer a most egregious question; in what I…

www.thenational.scot

Very enlightening.

 

[wordeater]

Here is my personal top 10 of prose works by Scottish authors:

1. Arthur Conan Doyle - The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902)
2. Robert Louis Stevenson - Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886)
3. Arthur Conan Doyle - The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892)
4. Walter Scott - Ivanhoe (1819)
5. Robert Louis Stevenson - Treasure Island (1883)
6. Josephine Tey - The Daughter of Time (1951)
7. John Buchan - The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915)
8. Muriel Spark - The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961)
9. Irvine Welsh - Trainspotting (1993)
10. J. M. Barrie - Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens (1906)

Only 7, 8 and 9 are set in Scotland; the other seven in England (sometimes travelling overseas or to Neverland). The reverse is true for Michel Faber's Under the Skin. This is my favorite novel set in Scotland, but the author has the Dutch nationality.

The most important poet is Robert Burns. Among the living poets Carol Ann Duffy can be mentioned.

 

[kpjayan]

^^
Thanks, would you have a contemporary list..

James Kelman, probably is one I'm familiar with (5-6 books).