Svět knihy 2004

Scotland and Scottish Literature
Although one of the smaller countries of Northern Europe, with a population of approximately five million, Scotland has rightly been described ‘a big country in miniature’. Its plethora of distinct regional identities, both urban and rural, create an eclectic cultural mix. Linguistically it is a complex country, with three indigenous languages, Gaelic, Scots, and English. The added tongues and cultures of settlers from many countries, predominantly India, Pakistan, and China, make contemporary Scotland truly ethnically diverse—a factor which is having an increasingly tangible impact on the nation’s cultural profile.
Long distinguished for its linguistically rich and innovative literary tradition, contemporary Scottish literature is buoyant and dynamic to an extent not seen since the indelible impact of Robert Burns in the eighteenth century or Robert Louis Stevenson in the nineteenth. The publication of Alasdair Gray’s groundbreaking masterpiece Lanark in 1981—together with the linguistically radical narratives of James Kelman, who won the Booker Prize in 1994 for How Late It Was, How Late—detonated an explosion of new fictional talent: A.L. Kennedy, Gordon Legge, Ron Butlin, Iain Banks, Janice Galloway, Ali Smith, Duncan McLean, Alan Warner, and last but by no means least, Irvine Welsh, whose searing anatomy of drug culture and urban dysfunction Trainspotting in 1993 rapidly reached cult status. In recent years the huge popularity of crime writers Ian Rankin, Val MacDermid, Christopher Brookmyre, and Louise Welsh has turned Scotland into an epicentre of the detective fiction genre.
Three periods in Scotland’s complex history have been characterised by a spectacular cultural and creative resurgence. In the mid-eighteenth century Scotland became a leading force in the European Enlightenment, making major contributions in almost every field of human endeavour. In the aftermath of World War I, driven by economic and spiritual collapse, the self-styled ‘Scottish Renaissance’ represented a linguistic and political redefinition of the country as a country with ancient roots on the edge of modern Europe. The period from the 1980s to the present has seen perhaps the most thorough cultural renaissance in Scotland’s history, an unleashing of creative energy in all the arts that continues to make Scotland’s contemporary cultural scene one of the liveliest and most eclectic in Europe.
For all their differences, these three periods have something in common. Since the Act of Union with England in 1707, which dissolved the Scottish Parliament and suspended the nation’s sovereignty, a pattern has persisted in which frustrated or confused political aspirations are redirected through creative and intellectual self-expression. What makes the present period unique is that, for the first time in almost three centuries, the arts and culture once again have the opportunity to thrive and define themselves in a nation which has regained its political autonomy: A majority of the population voted for devolution from British rule in September 1997, and the Scottish Parliament was officially opened in July 1998. Few would deny that the arts in Scotland during the past two decades played a central role, whether directly or indirectly, in exploring and articulating the pressures towards constitutional change.
Scottish poetry, too, has reached new heights. The solid foundations of a multi-tongued tradition ensured by the late eminences Sorley MacLean, Norman MacCaig, Iain Crichton Smith—and Scotland’s greatest living poet, Edwin Morgan—support a magnificent poetic edifice. Liz Lochhead, Douglas Dunn, Don Paterson, Kathleen Jamie, John Burnside, Robert Crawford, Tracey Herd, and Kevin MacNeil are voices increasingly recognised far beyond Scotland’s boundaries. Writing for children, too, is enjoying a new revival, while the astonishing success of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series is Scotland’s greatest literary phenomenon since the publication of Walter Scott’s Waverley novels.

Scottish Publishing
The publishing industry within Scotland is dominated by small owner-managed businesses, which face fierce competition from huge English-language publishing multinationals based in London and New York. That Scottish publishers are surviving at all in this climate is impressive—that they are publishing international bestsellers, such as Polygon’s series of No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency books by Alexander McCall Smith, is even more so. In 2003 Canongate, already celebrating publishing the Booker Prize– winning novel The Life of Pi, was awarded the title of the UK book trade’s Publisher of the Year. Publishers within Scotland also cover areas of culture that might not be published outside the country, such as works in the Gaelic and Scots languages. Last year, a collection of short stories by the Gaelic writer Martin Macintyre won the Saltire Prize for the best first book published in Scotland in 2003, while the Scots-language imprint Itchy Coo published best-selling titles and won an award for educational publishing from the Times Educational Supplement. Of course, not all Scottish writers are published in Scotland—a great many are published by the very multinationals with which small Scottish publishers compete. However, Scotland’s track record in talent-spotting has not gone unnoticed, and within the last year two multinationals (Hodder and Penguin) have opened offices in Scotland.
The best of publishing from Scotland will be showcased at the collective guest of honour stand. Publishers’ representatives and staff from the Scottish Publishers Association and the Scottish Arts Council will be based at the stand for the duration of the Book Fair. The publishers attending the Book Fair come from across the spectrum of Scottish publishing, and include Floris books, which specialises in children’s books and Celtic interest titles; Geddes and Grosset, which publishes reference books, children’s books, and calendars; the literary fiction publisher Canongate; and Neil Wilson Publishing, which produces titles on Scottish and Irish interest, food and drink, hillwalking, sports, biography, Scottish history, humour, and true crime, as well as the new fiction imprint 11:9.

Scottish Writers at BookWorld Prague 2004
The five authors coming to Prague from Scotland illustrate the diversity contained within the phrase ‘Scottish writing’. Three are published in London; two are published by Canongate in Edinburgh. Four are Scots by birth, while Kirsty Gunn is from New Zealand but has made Scotland her home for many years. Neal Ascherson lives in London; Kevin MacNeil lives on the Isle of Lewis (where he grew up) but has only recently returned from eighteen months living in Sweden. Ron Butlin lives in Edinburgh, while Edinburgh-born Louise Welsh lives in Glasgow, but has just spent several months living in France as recipient of the annual Robert Louis Stevenson Memorial Award. The range of writing covered by these five authors is huge: gothic crime fiction, Gaelic love poetry, novels, radio and stage plays, political and cultural history, and short stories.

Book Launch
A new anthology of short stories by Scottish women authors in Czech translation, which forms part of a series of short stories by women from across the world, will be published by One Woman Press and launched at the book fair this year.

Further Information
More information on Scottish publishing, with links to the publishers’ Web sites, is online at the Scottish Publishers Association site, www.scottishbooks.org. Further information on Scottish writers can be found at www.scottishbooktrust.com; those interested in pursuing a more academic interest in Scottish writing can consult the Association for Scottish Literary Studies’ site, www.arts.gla.ac.uk/ScotLit/ASLS/. The Edinburgh International Book Festival site is www.edbookfest.co.uk. Scotland’s presence at the Prague Book Fair is supported by the Scottish Arts Council and the British Council.