Alasdair Gray

Alasdair Gray

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.



I wanted to make stories and pictures. While writing or painting I forgot myself so completely that I did not want to be any different. I felt I was death’s equal.

Of Me and Others

Alasdair Gray

But I do enjoy words—some words—for their own sake! Words like river, and dawn, and daylight, and time. These words seem much richer than our experiences of the things they represent

Lanark

Alasdair Gray

In middle age I wholly lost my way and found myself within an evil wood far from the right straight road we all should tread

HELL

Alasdair Gray & Dante Alighieri