Written culture

Scotland Can

Stephen Richard — Mon, 19 Feb 2024 11:13:58 +0000

Scotland Can

Primary Author or Creator:

We Can

Stephen Richard Mon, 19/02/2024 - 11:13

Publisher:

Our Scottish Future

Alternative Published Date

2024 -

Category:

Written culture

Devolution

Type of Resource:

Website

Fast Facts

If Scotland wants to carry out radical land reform, build a new health system, change the school starting age, create new welfare benefits, or get working on dozens of other issues, then there is nothing to stop us.

Full Document (link)

https://www.wecan.scot/

Keywords

Lanark: A Life in Four Books

Devolution

Language English

Poor Things: meet the radical Scottish visionary behind the new hit film

Stephen Richard — Mon, 19 Feb 2024 11:13:58 +0000

Poor Things: meet the radical Scottish visionary behind the new hit film

Primary Author or Creator:

Joe Jackson

Stephen Richard Mon, 19/02/2024 - 11:13

Publisher:

The Conversation

Alternative Published Date

2024

Category:

Written culture

Type of Resource:

Article

Fast Facts

Alasdair Gray was a maverick and polymath – a writer, artist, polemicist, dissident and civic nationalist – who had an immense influence on contemporary Scottish literature and beyond.

More details

Gray studied at Glasgow School of Art, the experience of which is fictionalised in parts of his magnum opus Lanark: A Life in Four Books (1981). He produced unique portraiture, familiar and strange landscapes and ambitious murals which can still be seen in Glasgow.

For anyone yet to visit, the stereotype of Glasgow is a city of heavy industry now vanished, heavy Victorian tenements, heavy drinking and heavy rainfall. That idea has been difficult to dislodge.

In Lanark, the protagonist Duncan Thaw bemoans the difficulty in imagining Glasgow creatively, a task that Gray applied himself to assiduously through his career. Lanark itself, an epic that combines vivid fantasy with evocative realism, is where much of that imagination takes place. Its grandeur and ambition would suit the blockbuster treatment.

Full Document (link)

https://theconversation.com/poor-things-meet-the-radical-scottish-visionary-beh…

Keywords

Alasdair Gray

Poor Things

Lanark: A Life in Four Books

Language English

Memoirs of a Gallus Weegie

Stephen Richard — Wed, 15 Nov 2023 08:12:27 +0000

Memoirs of a Gallus Weegie

Primary Author or Creator:

Margaret McQuade McAuslan

Stephen Richard Wed, 15/11/2023 - 08:12

Alternative Published Date

2023

Category:

Written culture

Type of Resource:

Book

Fast Facts

It is a tremendous pleasure to read what Margaret McQuade McAuslan has written of her life in the mid 20th and early 21st Century.

More details

This is an impressive and expansive book of memoirs. It is ambitious, honest, bravely revealing, heartfelt, funny and deeply emotional.

McAuslan’s memoirs cover the period from 1953 to 2023. The book might just as well have been titled an autobiography rather than a memoir, but I’m guessing the author opted for the title of memoir because of the tough choices she faced in deciding what to include and what to leave out.

The evocations of Glasgow in 1950s and 60s are outstanding. Post-war Glasgow is shown in all its poverty, community resilience, sectarian stupidity, and generosity in clear and engaging sentences.

Margaret McQuade McAuslan is now resident in Ivancha, Bulgaria. Her book is available via Paypal or Bank Transfer from: agallusweegie@gmail.com Glasgow Women’s Library Shop, and Locavore, Victoria Rd, Glasgow

Keywords

Autobiography

Margaret McQuade McAuslan

Language English