The Bookseller A vert


In her keynote speech at the Northern Lights Edinburgh sessions last year, Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon shared her belief that “having a strong, diverse literary and publishing scene is essential, for any country”. She praised award-winning indie 404 Ink, comics and graphic novel specialist BHP Comics, and translator and publisher of contemporary Latin American writing Charco Press, for shining a light on voices often underrepresented in literature. But this is just the tip of


the iceberg. In recent years, several Scottish authors and publishers have produced work showcasing the diversity of the sector, including acclaimed non-fiction such as Aberdeen- born Kerry Hudson’s memoir of growing up in poverty, Lowborn, and exciting new fiction including The Young Team, inspired by Graeme Armstrong’s experiences of Airdrie’s gang culture. We meet three authors who are finding success writing from their unique perspectives


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Leila Aboulela A


lthough she always loved reading, Leila Aboulela never imagined she would become a writer. Aſter studying statistics at universit, she moved from Sudan to Scotland in her mid-twenties and started writing shortly aſterwards, atending


workshops at Aberdeen Universit and the cit’s Central Library. For Aboulela, starting to write in the 1990s, which she calls “an exciting time for Scotish literature”, was “inspirational”. She recalls a talk from Marion Sinclair in which the current Publishing Scotland c.e.o. expressed an interest in publishing fiction about people who didn’t read books; it assured Aboulela that the characters she was writing about—Muslim immigrants to Britain; African asylum seekers—had a place in literature. Serendipitously, Sinclair ended up publishing Aboulela’s first novel, The Translator, at Polygon.


Since then, her work has picked up several accolades, including the Caine Prize for African Writing and the Saltire Fiction Book of the Year Award. She is currently working on a novel set in the 19th century that explores the links between


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