Alasdair Gray

Alasdair Gray (born December 28, 1934) is a Scottish writer and artist. His most acclaimed work is his first novel Lanark, published in 1981 and written over a period of almost 30 years, which is now regarded as a cult classic. His novel Poor Things (1992) won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award.National Library of Scotland

Gray's works combine elements of realism, fantasy, and science fiction, plus clever use of typography and his own illustrations. He has also written on politics, in support of socialism and Scottish independence. He has been described by author Will Self as "a creative polymath with an integrated politico-philosophic vision",Moores ed. Alasdair Gray: Critical Appreciations and a Bibliography (2001) p. 4. and by himself as "a fat, spectacled, balding, increasingly old Glasgow pedestrian".Gray, The Ends of Our Tethers, Dustjacket (recto).

Life

Gray was born in Riddrie, east Glasgow. His father had been wounded in the First World War and worked at the time in a factory, while his mother worked in a shop. During the Second World War, Gray was evacuated to Perthshire and then Lanarkshire, experiences which he drew on in his later fiction. The family lived on a council estate, and Gray received his education from a combination of state education, public libraries and public service broadcasting: "the kind of education British governments now consider useless, especially for British working class children", as he later commented. He studied at Glasgow School of Art from 1952 to 1957, and taught there from 1958 to 1962. It was as a student that he first began what would become the novel Lanark.

After his graduation, Gray worked as a scene and portrait painter, as well as an independent artist and writer. His first plays were broadcast on radio and television in 1968. Between 1972 and 1974 he participated in a writing group organised by Philip Hobsbaum, where he met James Kelman, Liz Lochhead and Tom Leonard.

Gray illustrates his books himself, and has produced many murals as well as paintings. One of his longest-lasting murals can be seen, for free, in the Ubiquitous Chip restaurant in Glasgow's West End.

In 2001 he stood as the candidate of the Glasgow University Scottish Nationalist Association for the post of Rector of the University of Glasgow, but was eventually narrowly defeated by Greg Hemphill.

He has been married twice: firstly to Inge Sorenson (1961-1970), and since 1991 to Morag McAlpine. He has one son, Andrew, born in 1964. He still lives in Glasgow.

He produced the ceiling mural for The Auditorium of the Oran Mor on Byres Road in Glasgow, one of the largest pieces of art in Scotland.

Quotes

"Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation." (Various works.)
"It is plain that the vaster the social unit, the less possible is true democracy." Lanark, p.289
"Who did the council fight?"

"It split in two and fought itself."

"That's suicide!"

"No, ordinary behaviour. The efficient half eats the less efficient half and grows stronger. War is just a violent way of doing what half the people do calmly in peacetime: using the other half for food, heat, machinery and sexual pleasure. Man is the pie that bakes and eats himself, and the recipe is separation."

"I refuse to believe men kill each other just to make their enemies rich."

"How can men recognize their real enemies when their family, schools and work teach them to struggle with each other and to believe law and decency come from the teachers?"

"My son won't be taught that," said Lanark firmly.

"You have a son?"

"Not yet." Lanark, p.411

Literary Works

Novels

Short stories

Lean Tales (1985) (with James Kelman and Agnes Owens)
Unlikely Stories, Mostly (1983)
Ten Tales Tall & True (1993)
Mavis Belfrage (1996)
13 Sorry Stories (2003)

Poetry

Old Negatives (1989)
Sixteen Occasional Poems (2000)

Non-fiction

Why Scots Should Rule Scotland (1992; revised 1997)
The Book of Prefaces (2000)
Alasdair Gray: Critical Appreciations and a Bibliography (2001; includes contributions by Gray himself.)