Some Recent Attacks: Essays Cultural & Political

by James Kelman

James Kelman is justly celebrated as a major European novelist, short story writer, and playwright. Yet crucially his "artistry, authenticity and a voice of singular power" ( Independent ) flow from being an engaged writer and a cultural and political activist. In this collection of essays, polemics, and talks, Kelman directs his linguistic craftsmanship and scathing humor at the racism, class bias, and elitism of the English literary scene, the Labour Party's establishment role, the treatment of asbestos victims, the media, and other political and cultural questions. Essays include "Artists and Value," "Art and Subsidy," "Some Recent Attacks on the Rights of the People," "A Brief Note on the War Being Waged Against the Victims of Asbestos," and "The Importance of Glasgow in My Work."

James Kelman lives and will probably die in Glasgow.

Genres: Nonfiction, Literature

95 pages, Paperback

First published September 19, 1992

About the author

Kelman says:

My own background is as normal or abnormal as anyone else's. Born and bred in Govan and Drumchapel, inner city tenement to the housing scheme homeland on the outer reaches of the city. Four brothers, my mother a full time parent, my father in the picture framemaking and gilding trade, trying to operate a one man business and I left school at 15 etc. etc. (...) For one reason or another, by the age of 21/22 I decided to write stories. The stories I wanted to write would derive from my own background, my own socio-cultural experience. I wanted to write as one of my own people, I wanted to write and remain a member of my own community.

During the 1970s he published a first collection of short stories. He became involved in Philip Hobsbaum's creative writing group in Glasgow along with Tom Leonard, Alasdair Gray and Liz Lochhead, and his short stories began to appear in magazines. These stories introduced a distinctive style, expressing first person internal monologues in a pared-down prose utilising Glaswegian speech patterns, though avoiding for the most part the quasi-phonetic rendition of Tom Leonard. Kelman's developing style has been influential on the succeeding generation of Scottish novelists, including Irvine Welsh, Alan Warner and Janice Galloway. In 1998, Kelman received the Stakis Prize for "Scottish Writer of the Year" for his collection of short stories 'The Good Times.'
http://www.contemporarywriters.com/au...

Reviews

[Gavin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Detailed, paranoid leftism, mostly about local issues, Glasgow council and British race relations. Little general interest.

Published by the redoubtable AK Press – the channel for anarchism into the pre-internet teen bedrooms of Britain.

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 4 out of 5]

Trenchant critiques on class representation in British fiction and broader attacks on the racist and far-right British state, as relevant and potent in 2024 as in the post-Thatcher Britain of 1992 when this volume appeared.

[Thisisnotmarta · Rating 4 out of 5]

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