A History Maker
Alasdair Gray
Available as Paperback
A tale of border warfare, military and erotic, set in the twenty-third century, where the women rule the kingdom and the men play war games.
This is the fictional memoir of Wat Dryhope - edited, annotated and commented upon. History has come to an end, war is regulated as if it’s all a game. But Wat, the History Maker himself, does not play entirely by the rules, and when a woman, Delilah Puddock, joins the fray, this ‘utopian’ history is further enlivened.
Alasdair Gray cleverly plays with the notion and writing of history, as well as perennial modern debates on war, sexism and society - entertaining and thought-provoking, this is a delightful satire illustrated throughout by the author.
“As ripping yarns masquerading as political/social metaphors go, A History Maker is in a field of its own.”
gq
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“Fantasist, Realist, Parodist, Postmodernist - in just over a decade Alasdair Gray has become no mean literary history maker himself.”
scotsman
”A History Maker sees Gray at his most playful. The reference points are all over the place, just waiting to be unpicked and savoured - from Scott to Orwell to 70s sci-fi classic Rollerball. Gray drags them all together to form a clever, form-bending and brilliant read.”
big Issue
“A satire on Utopian fictions … Gray’s Scottish border fantasy jokes at its own expense all the better to examine the inherent flaws in a future that might work … very entertaining indeed.”
Liz Heron
times Educational Supplement
Alasdair Gray
Born in 1934, Alasdair Gray graduated in design and mural painting from the Glasgow School of Art. Since 1981, when Lanark was published by Canongate, he authored, designed and illustrated seven novels, several books of short stories, a collection of his stage, radio and TV plays and a book of his visual art, A Life in Pictures. In November 2019, he received a Lifetime Achievement award by the Saltire Society. He died in December 2019, aged eighty-five.