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introduction GREAT SCOTS


text Tom Tivnan


cotland obviously has a deep literary tradition, which is so intermeshed with its identit that it is difficult to think of many other places where writing maters so much to a culture. For example, few countries have an annual night celebrating a national poet, nor would name its capital cit’s main railway station aſter a series of novels. Yet for all those great authors of the past, there is a


BREAKOUT NOVELIST DEVIKA PONNAMBALAM


prety convincing argument to be made that Scotland’s books culture of the 2020s is its golden age. Even given the stresses and strains of the pandemic, and post-Covid challenges, we can see across-the-board excellence. There is the on-song publishing scene, led by stalwarts Canongate (which posted all-time record turnover and profit in 2022) and Barrington Stoke, and underpinned by innovative indies such as Luna Press, 404 Ink and Knight Errant Press. There is an embarrassment of riches in Scottish bookselling—the nation is home to almost 13% of all indie bookshops in the UK and Ireland, but just eight per cent of the two countries’ total population. It is not sheer numbers; so many outlets—The Edinburgh Bookshop, St Boswells’ The Mainstreet Trading Company, Aberfeldy’s The Watermill, and on and on—are award- winning and routinely held up as best practice for how bricks-and-mortar shops should run in the digital age. All this starts with the writing, and the literary scene in Scotland has probably never been


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DAMIAN BARR LEFT WELCOMES GUESTS ON HIS BBC SCOTLAND SERIES


broader or richer. Yes, this is topped by the Rankins and the Rowlings, those big bestselling beasts—a select


group you could probably add Booker winner Douglas Stuart to. But that is just the tip of the iceberg and what is truly exciting now is the plethora of new and emerging authors who, across multiple genres, are pushing the envelope. The past 12 months has been fecund for Scotish (or Scotland-based) débutants, such as Camilla Grudova’s hallucinatory Children of Paradise, Ryan O’Connor’s roistering The Voices and Devika Ponnambalam’s groundbreaking I Am Not Your Eve. Poetry, too, has had a tremendously strong year, with standouts including Alycia Pirmohamed’s Way to Split Water and Blood Salt Spring by Hannah Lavery.


Granta’s recent Best of Young British


Novelists list included four Scotland-based authors (Grudova, Graeme Armstrong, Sarah Bernstein and K Patrick), as well as Canongate star Derek Owusu, while older novelists are being recognised with Jenny Brown Associates’ new Debut Writers Over 50 Award. But a great example of the totalit of the rude health of Scotland’s books culture is the return of Damian Barr’s “Big Scotish Book Club” on BBC Scotland. It is a democratising panel of writers and celebrities, with filmed bits of “regular” folk, enthusing about everything from rom-coms to bardic poetry. The underlying principle is that literature is for the masses, and anyone who cares about books should welcome the fact that this show is a hit.


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