Rejected by his brother and largely ignored by his parents, Kieron Smith finds comfort - and endless stories - in the home of his much-loved grandparents. But when his family move to a new housing scheme on the outskirts of Glasgow, a world away from the close community of the tenements, Kieron struggles to find a way to adapt to his new life.

Kieron Smith, boy is a brilliant evocation of an urban childhood. Capturing the joys, frustrations, injustices, excitements, revels, battles, games, uncertainties, questions, lies, discoveries and sheer wonder of boyhood, it is a story of one boy and every boy. It is James Kelman at his very best.

A controversial Booker Prize-winner's striking portrayal of normal life captures a child's eye view in a truly wondrous way

About the Author

James Kelman is a Scottish novelist, short story writer, playwright. He was born in Glasgow in 1946 and left school in 1961, moving around and passing through Los Angeles for a brief period in the mid-1960s then in various jobs in various places in England. He started writing at the age of twenty-one: ramblings, musings, sundry phantasmagoria, stories, whatever.

Kelman's literary awards include the Cheltenham Prize for Literature (1987), James Tait Black Memorial Prize (1989) and the Booker Prize (1994).

Reviews

'Kieron Smith, boy is one more in a line of uncompromising, honest, passionate, radical and perfectly crafted books from a writer who has not given up on the questions of freedom and justice.' Sean O'Reilly, Stinging Fly

'Kieron Smith, boy gives voice to an honourable decency which guides the human spirit even in the midst of its own brutality. This is an outstanding novel of immense power, and is Kelman's best yet.' Simon Koevesi, The Independent

'By forcing us to rethink childhood, (and therefore adulthood), Kieron Smith, boy is a magnificent and important novel, and might just be Kelman's greatest achievement to date.' Irvine Welsh, Financial Times

'An outstanding, living, breathing novel that powerfully documents the life of a Glaswegian boy in his own voice . . . this book is almost impossible to review, because it is simply too good . . . Kelman is not beating up the contemporary novel - he is simply showing how it's done and shoving the bar that bit farther up and out of reach for most British writers.' Eileen Battersby, Irish Times

'James Kelman's best novel so far, Kieron Smith, boy . . . is Kelman's tender evocation of his own childhood.' James Wood, New Yorker

'The boy's voice, to my ear, is flawless and brilliantly sustained. The diction, the syntax, the sudden cliff-edges Kelman brings us to, where language fails - these are the product of years of careful listening to people who're never listened to.' Kathleen Jamie, Granta

'I have read no other depiction of the inner life of a boy that comes as close as this to Salinger's.' Martyn Bedford, Literary Review

'Rings true at every turn. It has the excitement of lived experience, recollected with painterly precision . . . It is beautifully done.' Stephen Abell, The Telegraph

'This novel is a tour de force of narrative authenticity, of art conjuring up life so vividly it is alarmingly akin to first-hand experience.' Rosemary Goring, The Herald

Book Information
ISBN 9781916751491
Author James Kelman
Format Paperback
Imprint And Other Stories
Publisher And Other Stories
Weight(grams) 189g