Iain Banks, acclaimed Scottish writer of fiction and science fiction who died yesterday, wrote one last blast against modern Britain in his final book, The Quarry.
While tributes were paid to the writer, 59, who passed away only two months after revealing he was dying of advanced gall bladder cancer, excerpts from his book, to be published on June 20, showed he had not lost any of his literary vitality. In the book, the character Guy, who is dying of cancer, rails against the state of British society, slating its "pathetic, grovelling population of celebrity-obsessed, superficiality-fixated w******.
"I shall not miss the institutionalised servility that is the worship of the royals ... or the cringing respect accorded to the sh***ing out of value-bereft Ruritanian 'honours' by the government of the f***ing day, or the hounding of the poor and disabled and the cosseting of the rich and privileged."
In a BBC interview, he said of the outburst: "It's a proper rant. I remember sitting there and thinking right out, you've got to use some of these feelings that you're having right now."
Banks died peacefully early yesterday morning and with no pain, his wife Adele said last night.
Alex Salmond, the First Minister, said the nation had lost "one of Scotland's greatest literary talents".
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