If It Is Your Life

James Kelman, a writer of novels, short stories, plays, and political essays, was born in Glasgow in 1946. He won the Cheltenham Prize for Greyhound for Breakfast (1987) and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for A Disaffection (1989), which was also short-listed for the Man Booker Prize. His fourth novel, How Late It Was, How Late, won the Booker Prize in 1994. Kelman was awarded the Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland Award in 1998. His short-story collection The Good Times (1999) won the Stakis Prize for Scottish Writer of the Year. In 2008 he won Scotland’s most prestigious literary award, the Saltire Society Scottish Book of the Year Award, for Kieron Smith, Boy. He is the author of a television screenplay, The Return (1991), and has written many plays for radio and theater. Kelman has taught creative writing at the University of Texas, Goldsmiths College of the University of London, and the University of Glasgow. His most recent novel, Mo Said She Was Quirky, was published by Other Press in 2013.