And The Judges Said

A major new collection of essays from the Booker Prize-winning author of How late it was, how late.This first non-fiction publication by James Kelman in ten years is a passionate and wide-ranging volume of essays dealing with matters literary, artistic, political and philosophical. In the essay “And the Judges Said…” Kelman outlines some of the influences that led him to create literary art; from the music he heard as a teenager to American and Russian writers, to the lives of the Impressionists. Elsewhere he looks at the role of elitism in literature, the central importance of Chomsky’s work in 20th century thought, and the work of the Caribbean Artists Movement. At the core of the collection is an extended essay on Franz Kafka.