William McIlvanney
Posted in Events dear boy. Events, Poetry, Scottish Fiction, Scottish Literature at 20:00 on 5 December 2015
I was so sad to hear today of the death of William McIlvanney, whose Docherty is one of the 100 best Scottish Books, but really any one of his novels could be placed in that list.
He wasn’t only a novelist but wrote journalistic pieces as well. some of which were printed as Surviving the Shipwreck, which I reviewed here. Not content with that he also published poetry.
As a chronicler of the West of Scotland working class tradition, its intellectual complexity, he was superb; but whatever he turned his writing hand to the result always showed a humane sensibility.
This obituary from The Spectator says it better than I could.
William McIlvanney:- 25/11/1936 – 5/12/2015. So it goes.
