The novelist Irvine Welsh, born in Leith near to the docks and to the Hibernian Easter Road football ground in Edinburgh, claims to have been born in 1958, but others cite 1961, and one

Observer

article has even claimed the Glasgow police say his records show his birth year as 1951. Though he did not adapt the famous film of his first novel

Trainspotting

(1993), he has become a writer for screen, stage, and television.

Trainspotting

has been considered a landmark in contemporary culture by many critics. This is for a number of reasons: it created a new international literary bestseller that was distinctly Scottish; it had as great if not greater success in its adaptations as film and play; it was read in clubs and appealed to the chemical generation; it encouraged music shops to sell…

2754 words

Citation: Childs, Peter. "Irvine Welsh". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 01 November 2004; last revised 24 January 2018. [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5146, accessed 21 November 2024.]

5146 Irvine Welsh 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

Save this article

Leave Feedback

The Literary Encyclopedia is a living community of scholars. We welcome comments which will help us improve.