Small cracks sounded from the fire and the rest was silence. The girl was seated between her parents, the three of them aligned on a log her father had found and rolled to the glade of their campsite. They were alone in this place. The wind seemed to change whenever the girl faced the fire Read More
Paul Auster Faber & Faber; Hbk; £20 For an author whose work has always been concerned, above all else, with the idea that “the world is so unpredictable,” it seems no small irony that Paul Auster’s fiction has remained so rigidly formulaic over the entirety of his career. For years, anyone even remotely familiar with Read More
This is an edited filmed interview of a conversation that took place between Kirsty Gunn, Cameron Twiddy and James Kelman in October 2016. Cameron Twiddy’s personal account of that interview was posted on DURA, 28 July 2017.
I’m about to interview James Kelman, inarguably one of the most important writers working in Britain today. As I climb the stairs of the University of Dundee’s Tower Building, I’m feeling terribly anxious. Over the course of his career, Kelman has garnered a bit of a reputation for giving quite thorny interviews and I’m Read More
Knowing she would soon be leaving New York, Mary Austin Speaker decided to create a piece of work which would honour the city she had called home for over a decade. The result is her wonderful new book of poetry, The Bridge. One of the reasons that this collection is so compelling is that it Read More
Dirt Road, James Kelman’s latest novel, opens at the outset of a journey; Murdo, a sixteen-year-old accordionist, and his father, Tom, are travelling from Scotland to visit relatives in Alabama. Where one might expect feelings of excitement, the anticipation of an adventure, there is instead a solemn atmosphere. Murdo’s mother has recently passed away from Read More
