Best Selling Books by James Kelman

James Kelmans großer, 1994 mit dem Booker Prize ausgezeichneter Roman liegt nun erstmals in deutscher Übersetzung vor. Spät war es, so spät erzählt die Geschichte eines Glasgower Kleinganoven, der erblindet und unfreiwillig in die Mühlen des Polizeiapparats gerät. Spät war es, so spät ist eine schwarze Komödie über das Leben, virtuos erzählt, schonungslos und ergreifend zugleich.

Offers some of the author''s best work from three separate collections. The Bevel and The Hitchhiker tell of Chas, Sammy and the boy working in the Highlands in the summer, while Pictures and Lassies Are Trained That Way have their own take on the relationships between men and women.

Tammas is 20, a loner and a compulsive gambler. Unable to hold a job for long, his life revolves around Glasgow bars, living with his sister and brother-in-law, betting shops, and casinos. Sometimes Tammas wins, more often he loses. But gambling gives him as good a chance as any of discovering what he seeks from life since society offers no prospect of a more fulfilling alternative.

Helen travaille de nuit dans un casino comme croupière, et vit dans un minuscule appartement de la banlieue londonienne, avec sa petite fille de six ans et son compagnon, Mo, anglo-pakistanais, qui trouve qu''elle est tordue. Plus que tordue, dit-elle.Les pensées filent en roue libre – racisme ordinaire, sexisme à la petite semaine, ...

This is a big bundle of essays and written talks, put down over a long number of years: Kelman hopes some of them make you smile. James Kelman began as a writer of fiction and became a writer of nonfiction in the bargain. He had a short story set for his first ever publication that the printer refused to print on the grounds of ''blasphemy.'' He searched the story for this ''blasphemy'' but couldn''t find any. He solved the problem by submitting a different story. In the years to follow the hostility didn''t vanish. He began to challenge, saying what he thought and why he thought it. Defending is a drain on one''s energy. But when attacked directly it is hard to walk on. This collection of twenty-six essays - personal, political, and in between - tells the intertwined tales of art, literature, history, culture, and life. They look and question not through an academic lens of literary theory and the great traditions but through lived experience and resistance to the status quo. From class, ethnicity, and other borders to one''s ability as a writer to earn a living, or not, in order to survive in the drudgery of capitalism. And therefore, whose stories do we experience? Can we see ourselves in them? What is lost or hidden? Amidst these questions are glimpses into the life of an artist and the connections made. Weaving stories of childhood, the importance of bookshops, to the people met along the way that make a world whole

The majority of the 18 stories in A Lean Third have been substantially revised by the author, making these new versions of great interest to academics and fans alike. Of particular note is a 3000 word afterword, written especially for this edition. The author gives revealing insights into the background of many of the stories and his lifestyle at the time of writing. A fascinating and essential new edition.

Un desafecto plasma el mundo de Patrick Doyle, un profesor de secundaria de Glasgow próximo a la treintena, en cuadros que describen una semana de su vida en crisis. Pero la crisis de Patrick no es sólo la crisis de los treinta.

Robert Hines est un jeune employé de bus de Glasgow, il rêve de devenir conducteur mais aux yeux des inspecteurs de la compagnie, il est trop original, il a trop de mal à se plier aux règles, aux horaires. Confronté à un quotidien " désastreux et étrangement banal ", il n''y survit que grâce à son amour pour sa femme et son fils et une imagination magnifiquement anarchique. Dans ce roman drôle, intelligent et réellement original, James Kelman met en scène avec une verve et un humour sans complaisance le dur milieu ouvrier de Glasgow : la religion, le foot, l''alcool, les copains, la pesanteur aliénante des réunions enfumées... Il décrit une vie de travailleur, sans héroïsme, simplement humaine, en créant un personnage attachant et inoubliable.

Na zijn vrijlating uit de gevangenis wordt een Engelsman blind als gevolg van een incident met de politie, wat echter moeilijk te bewijzen is.