Canongate to Publish New Novel by Booker Prize-Winning James Kelman

Canongate is to publish a new novel by Scotland's only Booker prizewinning novelist, James Kelman. World rights were acquired in Dirt Road by publishing director Francis Bickmore, from Gill Coleridge at Rogers, Coleridge and White. Canongate will publish Dirt Road in hardback in August 2016, alongside a film adaptation.

The story of a journey out of darkness, Dirt Road follows father and son Tom and Murdo, on an expedition that will take them from their Scottish island home to the American South. They are propelled by their tragedy, the death of Murdo's mother, with neither able to reach the feelings in words. Murdo, a teenager obsessed with music, wishes for a life beyond the constraints of the home where he grew up, the oppressive authority of his father; he dreams of becoming his own man; Tom, punished by loss, stumbles backwards towards the future, terrified of losing his dignity, his control, his son and, with him, the last of his family life. On the road we discover whether the hopes of youth can conquer the fears of age.

A film of the story, entitled Dirt Road to Lafayette and directed by Scottish director Kenny Glenaan, is in production with Singer Films. It is due for release in 2016.

Kelman was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1989 with A Disaffection, which also won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction. He then went on to win the Booker five years later with How Late it Was, How Late, before being shortlisted twice for the Man Booker International Prize, in 2009 and 2011.

James Kelman said, "My backlist has been supported by Birlinn over the years but this from Canongate is a very exciting development. This is the first original publication I shall have had in Scotland in thirty years. It's altogether an exciting period in Scotland, and in publishing there is a vibrancy that distinguishes it from elsewhere. I must say it feels good to be back. At a personal level also it is pleasing: I have two grandchildren at school here in Glasgow; one daughter teaches PE there while my younger daughter has worked for several years as a Welfare Rights Officer in West Dunbartonshire."

Francis Bickmore, Publishing Director at Canongate commented,

"Dirt Road is a major novel. It explores the brevity of life, the agonising demands of love and the lure of the open road. It's also a beautiful book about the power of music and all that it can offer. From the understated serenity of Kelman's prose - like a Hibernian Carver - emerges a devastating emotional power. I believe this to be an outstanding novel from Scotland's only Booker Prizewinner and one of the world's truly great writers. It is terrific to have James Kelman back with a Scottish-based publisher once more."

James Kelman was born in Glasgow in 1946 and lived for periods in Los Angeles, Manchester, the Channel Islands and London. Aged 22 he began writing novels, short stories and plays. His first published work was a short story collection, An Old Pub Near the Angel, published in Maine, USA in 1973. He gained wider recognition in the UK with Greyhound for Breakfast (1987), winner of the Cheltenham Prize, and the novel, A Disaffection (1989), which won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize (for fiction) and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction. In 1994 he won the Booker Prize, and Writers Guild "Best Fiction" with How Late It Was, How Late and was later twice shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize. Kelman has taught at the University of Texas (1998, 1999 and 2001) at Goldsmiths College, London; San Jose State University, California, and at the University of Glasgow.