Scottish Booker Prize winner “wants nothing to do with the British Council”

In fact, James Kelman, author of the prize-winning novel “How late it was, how late”, and whose latest work is “Mo said she was quirky”, said in Saturday's Scottish Review of Books that the involvement of the British Council in the Writers Conference at the Edinburgh International Book Fair was “nauseous”. 

And so say all of us.

Comments

[neil robertson]

Well said James Kelman!

[Trevor White]

It is the International Book fair in Edinburgh.

[David]

It appears to be correctly called Edinburgh International Book Festival. Apologies for the error.
http://www.edbookfest.co.uk/

[neil robertson]

Kelman may say more about why he is boycotting the British Council-organised 'Writers Conference' and why British Council makes him feel 'nauseous' at this event at Edinburgh's International Book Festival on Sunday: http://www.edbookfest.co.uk/the-festival/whats-on/james-kelman-with-liz-lochhead but primarily I suspect he will be discussing his latest book 'Mo Was Quirky' with Scotland's National Poet (Liz Lochchead)

[neil robertson]

"Mo Said She Was Quirky" is apparently the title ... an important distinction! :)

[neil robertson]

http://107cowgate.com/2012/08/17/kelman-edinburgh-writers-conference/ James Kelman on why he withdrew from The Writers Conference in protest at the involvement of The British Council

[David]

The BC is of course politically motivated - even its commercial machinations exist to demonstrate to their political masters how much "value" they get for their money. Kelman's point about British literature is well made - what indeed are we talking about? Well, here's one answer. The British Council has pages for many different countries worldwide, including of course Scotland and Wales, to which I see they have recently added England. The interesting thing there is that whereas the Scotland pages refer and pander to the Scots and the Wales pages to the Welsh, I challenge anybody to find anything that is specifically English (as opposed to British) on the England pages. So it seems that while Scottish culture and literature can be Scottish, English literature and culture is British.