Alasdair Gray Bücher

In den zerfallenden Städten Unthank und Glasgow erzählt diese moderne Vision der Hölle die verflochtenen Geschichten zweier Männer: Lanark und Duncan Thaw. Während sich das Leben in vier Büchern entfaltet, beginnt die seltsame, verborgene Beziehung zwischen Lanark und Thaw langsam sichtbar zu werden. Lanark ist ein gewaltiges Werk der Vorstellungskraft und das Ergebnis von fünfundzwanzig Jahren Arbeit von Gray, der auch den Roman illustrierte und gestaltete. Bei seiner ersten Veröffentlichung wurde es sofort als ein bedeutendes literarisches Werk anerkannt und mit Dante, Black, Joyce, Orwell, Kafka, Huxley und Lewis Carroll verglichen. Dreißig Jahre später hat sich seine Kraft, Majestät, Wut und Relevanz nur verstärkt.

Die Handlung spielt im zeitgenössischen Glasgow. Der Autor hat die außergewöhnliche Fähigkeit, Charaktere sowohl durch einen lakonischen Erzählstil als auch durch ihre Dialoge humorvoll zu charakterisieren. Die Romanhandlung, bestehend aus 13 Erzählungen, erzählt von einer erfolgreichen, aber resignierten Frau, die erotisches Vergnügen findet und sich von gesellschaftlichen Konventionen in einer sadomasochistischen lesbischen Beziehung befreit. Der Raum der Erzählung, zwischen dem Versprechen von Abenteuern und deren Erfüllung, wird durch die Lebensgeschichten dreier Partnerinnen der Protagonistin gefüllt, die aus verschiedenen sozialen Schichten stammen. Die Schilderung ihres Lebens ermöglicht es dem Autor, eine Reihe von Themen zu entfalten: die Klassenhierarchie in der englischen Gesellschaft, die Stellung der Kunst in der heutigen Konsumwelt und Feminismus. All dies wird brillant, mit einer gehörigen Portion Ironie und einem feinen Sprachstil behandelt. Am Ende des Romans treffen die zuvor unbekannten Charaktere aufeinander, und die Handlung nimmt eine unerwartete Wendung und einen Höhepunkt.

Die Menschen des 23. Jahrhunderts haben materielle wie psychische Not und Ausbeutung abgeschafft. Freilich ist ist dieses System umfassend praktizierter Ökologie und Weisheit weder ganz unproblematisch noch ungefährdet.

'Grandly conceived, gorgeously realised, and sparklingly alert to the making not just of works of art, but of a language, this crammed compendium, so copiously yet lightly learned, so drolly self-reflexive, yet enticingly accessible, so exhilaratingly, quixotically magniloquent, is the last word in forewords.' Herald

From the genius of Scottish letters, a satire of religion, the media and London

Describing etiquette, government, irrigation, education, clogs, kites, rumour, poetry, justice, massage, town-planning, sex and ventriloquism in an obsolete nation. Alasdair Gray was born in 1934. He obtained a diploma in Design and Mural Painting in 1957 and has since earned his living in Glasgow, mostly by painting and writing. Much of his fiction is published in Penguin, including 1982 Janine, Poor Things, Ten Tales Tall & True and Unlikely Stories, Mostly, from which Five Letters from an Eastern Empire is taken.

An authoritative collection of Alasdair Gray's stories gathered over the last twenty five years.

This pamphlet is for anyone alarmed by the present British government. It argues that the component nations of the United Kingdom can become true democracies only by declaring themselves republics. The authors are Alasdair Gray, writer of fiction and pamphlets such as Why Scots Should Rule Scotland, and Adam Tomkins, Professor of Public Law in the University of Glasgow and author of Public Law and Our Republican Constitution. Both are committed republicans.

A fantastical comedy from the irreplaceable Alasdair Gray

Set in Glasgow of the 1880s, a story of the love life of two doctors, and a mature woman created by one of them.

Each selection of stories is preceded by a detailed portrait, drawn by Gray, above a reproduction of the writer's signature. The collection ends, as do so many of Gray's books, with a chapter detailing how the book got written. Postscript is a detailed memoir of Gray and Kelman, among others, attending Philip Hobsbaum's writing group in the 70s and their friendship with Agnes Owens. Gray had agreed to produce another collection of short stories, but didn't have enough written to fill a book on his own. So he used his position to help friends that he thoughts deserved the boost of publication by a major London-based publishing house. His decision has since been vindicated and the collection is seen as an early display of three talents that would be of great importance to the boom in Scottish writing in the late-80s/early-90s. Owens has since had several well-received novels published and Kelman has won the Booker prize.

This brilliant new verse translation by Allen Mandelbaum captures the consummate beauty of the third and last part of Dante's Divine Comedy. The Paradiso is a luminous poem of love and light, of optics, angelology, polemics, prayer, prophecy, and transcendent experience. As Dante ascends to the Celestial Rose, in the tenth and final heaven, all the spectacle and splendor of a great poet's vision now becomes accessible to the modern reader in this highly acclaimed, superb dual language edition. With extensive notes and commentary. - from the publisher

The first short story collection from the irreplaceable Alasdair Gray, sublimely decorated throughout

Old Men in Love, like The Arabian Nights, is about a storyteller whose stories contain other stories. As in Alasdair Gray's Lanark, 1982 Janine, Poor Things, and The Book of Prefaces, this one has many styles of narrative and location. Periclean Athens, Renaissance Florence, Victorian Somerset mingle with Britain under the New Labour Party, viewed from the West End of Glasgow. More than 50% is fact and the rest possible, but must be read to be believed.

Alasdair Gray's remarkable retelling of Dante's Divine Comedy; this edition brings Gray's Hell, Purgatory and Paradise together into a single edition for the first time