Lanark: A Life in Four Books

(Hardback, Main)

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Description

40th anniversary edition

'Probably the greatest novel of the century' - Observer

Lanark, a modern vision of hell set in the disintegrating cities of Unthank and Glasgow, tells the interwoven stories of Lanark and Duncan Thaw. A work of extraordinary imagination, its playful narrative conveys a profound message, both personal and political, about humankind's inability to love, and yet our compulsion to go on trying.

First published in 1981, Lanark established Alasdair Gray as one of Britain's leading writers and kickstarted the modern renaissance of Scottish literature.

Reviews

Probably the greatest novel of the century . . . It marked the beginning of a new era * * Observer * *
One of the landmarks of twentieth-century fiction . . . Lanark changed the landscape of Scottish fiction, opening up the imaginative territory inhabited today by writers such as A.L. Kennedy, James Kelman and Irvine Welsh * * Guardian * *
One of the seminal works of Scottish literature, a book credited with kick-starting Scotland's literary renaissance * * Sunday Times * *
At times exuberant, at times despairing, always vivid . . . Urban and wholly contemporary, yet suffused with the past . . . Lanark , in common with all great books, is still, and always will be, an act of resistance. It is part of the system of whispers and sedition and direct communion, one voice to another, we call literature -- Janice Galloway * * Guardian * *
This extraordinary masterpiece . . . is profoundly perceptive about the ways in which our society is destroying itself. Yet it manages to be funny and is written in a beautifully lucid prose * * Times Literary Supplement * *
I was absolutely knocked out by Lanark. I think it's the best in Scottish literature this century -- IAIN BANKS
Remarkable . . . Lanark is a work of loving and vivid imagination, yielding copious riches -- William Boyd * * Times Literary Supplement * *
It was time Scotland produced a shattering work of fiction in the modern idiom. This is it . . . [Gray is] the best Scottish novelist since Sir Walter Scott -- ANTHONY BURGESS
From a lesser writer, stygian darkness and baroque structure might see off a mass audience and reduce a book to cult status. In Gray's hands, the simple, direct prose found him a wide readership * * The Times * *
Lanark, the first novel and arguably the masterpiece of [Gray] gouges a dwelling place in your imagination and leaves it forever altered . . . Knocks the socks off almost everything written on this little island in the past fifty years . . . It increases the scope of fiction's possibilities * * Independent * *

Author Bio

Born in 1934, Alasdair Gray graduated in design and mural painting from the Glasgow School of Art. Since 1981, when Lanark was published by Canongate, he authored, designed and illustrated seven novels, several books of short stories, a collection of his stage, radio and TV plays and a book of his visual art, A Life in Pictures. In November 2019, he received a Lifetime Achievement award by the Saltire Society. He died in December 2019, aged eighty-five.