THE leading Scottish author James Kelman believes that much of the Scottish cultural establishment does not know or care for the nation’s literary and philosophical history.

Speaking at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, the Booker Prize winning author criticised theatre in Scotland, saying productions were '70 years out of date', a view he acknowledged may be controversial.

Kelman, speaking to a packed theatre at the annual festival in an event to mark his new collection of short stories, responded to an audience member who queried why he and his work was not better known or publicised in Scotland.

The Glaswegian author of books including How Late is Was, How Late, Dirt Road and Kieron Smith, Boy said: “Part of it, is that so many of those who are in control don't really understand what the Scottish intellectual tradition is: they don't know what it is.

"At the risk of being controversial, the Scottish national theatre is like that.

"It is 70 years out of date.

"Why does it still think that is what Scottish drama should be?

"What is going on? They have a particular view of what it should be. Which is a kind of kitchen-sink, 1950s kind of thing. I won't mention writers' names, but I go: come on."

He added: "The same thing applies in terms of whether it is prose or poetry. I think of [the poet and writer] Tom Leonard, how on earth can Tom he not be treated properly, here in his own country?

"Why are proper artists here not [recognised]...people don't even know who they are.

"You go anywhere in Scotland and nobody knows who you are.

"It is a really weird situation."

Kelman, who won the Booker Prize in 1994, said that he thought what he sees as a lack of recognition or knowledge was improving in the field of philosophy.

He said: "Maybe are things are altering a little bit for the better, I know they are in terms of the philosophical tradition.

"People are beginning to understand that there is a distinct thing about it - why[Immanuel] Kant wasn't influenced by John Locke, but he was influenced by David Hume [the Scottish philosopher]: what was it about Hume that was different?

"Why is it that about the only person Einstein mentions is [James] Clerk Maxwell? What was it about Clerk Maxwell's work that made Einstein say he was the most important thinker since Newton?

"There are all these figures...but that takes you into a political issue."

Kelman also read one of his stories from the collection and discussed his intellectual and literary history, and the history of his own reading, taking in his love of writing from translation when he was young, including Kafka, Marguerite Duras, Camus, Stendhal and many others.

Kelman underlined his belief that a good knowledge of Scotland's literary and philosophical identity was needed to understand writers such as James Hogg, who wrote the seminal The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner in 1824.

He added: "Only way to understand it is to have some grasp of that Scottish intellectual tradition, there is no other way.

"This is not to do with identity.

"It makes no difference if someone comes from Scotland, England, Ireland, Wales, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, America, Trinidad, north America, Jamaica, Canada, it does not matter, but whoever it is has to have some grasp of that intellectual tradition, otherwise they will never know what the hell it is we are talking about."