THE artist and writer Alasdair Gray is to make a return to Edinburgh's International Book Fest two years after suffering a disastrous accident at his home in Glasgow.
Gray, the author of Lanark, is to make a surprise return to the book festival, which starts this weekend, as a special guest for the tribute evening arranged to celebrate the memory and achievements of the late Stephanie Wolfe Murray.
The co-founder of Canongate Books, Ms Wolfe Murray published Lanark, considered to be one of the great modern Scottish novels, and Gray, who has largely recovered from his fall, will take part in the event on August 23.
Nick Barley, director of the festival, said he was delighted Gray had agreed to travel to the capital for the event, which is free but ticketed.
On the eve of the 2017 book festival, which this year has expanded its venues into George Street, Barley also spoke about the current generation of Scottish writers, and suggested it had not fully emerged in a way that achieved by a previous generation, featuring writers such as Alan Warner, Ali Smith and Louise Welsh.
Barley said that writers such as Jenni Fagan, whose acclaimed books include The Panopticon and The Sunlight Pilgrims, and Malachy Tallack, author of 60 Degrees North, have great talent but they are part of a group of younger writers that has not yet emerged as a cohesive literary 'generation'.
Barley said the festival's Outriders project, featuring writers such as Fagan, Tallack, Stef Smith, Harry Giles and Kevin MacNeil, had been part of its contribution to assisting this wave of talent.
He said: "I think whether it's in art or writing or theatre, you tend to get generational waves, and in the literary scene we have enjoyed an extraordinary generation, which includes Alan Warner, Louise Welsh, Ali Smith, who are now the established generation of Scottish writers, and they are still in their purple patch.
"The question is what is coming after them, where is the next generation? My feeling is that there is a really, really powerful next generation of writers....but have they cohered into what you might call a 'generation'? I don't think they have yet.
"I think our responsibility as publishers, festivals and media is to try and find a framework in which they can feel themselves to be a generation, and when that comes together I think it will be incredibly powerful.
"It's not that the talent is lacking, it's that sense of a kind of collective ability to understand each others work, hasn't quite come together yet."
Barley added there is as yet no collective "narrative" about Scotland's emerging writers.
He said: "If you want to talk about a 'generation' there does need to be some sense of collective - 25 years ago when I used to visit Glasgow I would visit one artist, and they would say, 'come and see my friends studio'...there was a sense of being one among many.
"There is absolutely no question that Scotland has literary talent which is easily as good as what we saw in a previous generation, the question is about how we get the perceptions of that to match the talent in our ranks."
Gray will appear at the event along with Mairi Hedderwick, Alexander McCall Smith, Tom Pow and Kim Wolfe Murray, chaired by Canongate’s director Jamie Byng.
Mr Barley said: "Alasdair Gray is back in the programme, which I am so happy about.
"Alasdair is going to be reading from Lanark, as Stephanie Wolfe Murray was brave enough to commission and publish Lanark.
"I am really thrilled that he is willing to come out and make that contribution.
"We hope people come along to not only mark her passing but also celebrate that Alasdair is back in public life.
"I have to admit that with a great sadness I thought we had seen the last of Alasdair on the festival stage, but it is so brilliant that he is back."
Barley also said the winner of the Man Booker International Prize for Fiction, David Grossman, will be appearing at the festival on August 16.
On the expansion into George Street, Mr Barley said it was an "experiment" and a "one-off".
He said: "This is an experiment to see how it feels, and if we succeed in bringing in more people, different kinds of people, then we are constructing an argument to do it again."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here