 Irvine Welsh lives in London. His first book Trainspotting
(1993) reached the last top ten for the Booker prize and was turned into a successful film
and stage play. His other books are The Acid House, a collection of short stories
published in 1994, a second novel, Marabou Stork Nightmares (1995), and most
recently Ecstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romance, published in 1996. He is
currently working on a third novel, Filth, due for U.K publication in Autumn 1998.
He made a hit single (No. 17 in the UK) with Primal Scream and is working on a 'disco'
album with DJ Kris Needs. Four stories from The Acid House are currently being made
for television by Channel 4.His books have been translated into eleven languages around the world. UPDATE : Check out review of 'Filth' from issue 9 |
rainspotting 1993.The first book and the best
known thanks to the film but it was already doing well before the hype and the movie
release. Practically flawless and easily one of the most important and influential books
to come out of Britain in the last 30 years or so and will certainly have its place in the
history of British literature. Essential to any book collection. There is also a stage
version.
cid House (The) 1994. Critically
acclaimed collection of short stories and a novella. Welsh uses the creative possibilities
of a word processor to great effect: see title story for a fine example. One story, 'The
Granton Star Cause', where God is a swearing pisshead like us all was turned into a film
or something. If you have Trainspotting you'll need this.
arabou Stork Nightmares 1995. A far more
coherent storyline than Trainspotting but seems to have sunk without trace or
much comment despite its being very good. Previous experiments with the word processor
turn up in full story telling glory in this work.
cstasy: Three Tales of Chemical
Romance 1996. By now the shell-shocked London critics had recovered enough to
fend off this outsider so they put their collective boot in when Ecstasy came
out. It still sold by the truck load and is better than everyone first
thought. Try to read the second of the 3 novellas, 'Fortune's Always Hiding', without any
prior knowledge, i.e avoid the give-away bookcover notes and let the jumbled stories
slowly evolve. Excellent.