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The big novels of 2012
From Hilary Mantel to Martin Amis, Ian McEwan to Zadie Smith, plus the first adult novel from JK Rowling – the biggest stars are out in 2012. Here's a guide to an extraordinary year in fictionCapital...
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The unnoticed bias of the Booker prize
Can a prize which has honoured such a disproportionate number of English writers really be choosing the best of Commonwealth literature?It's been the curse of the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish that...
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Shorter cuts: news doesn't get any smaller
Holiday fashion, Olympic ticket etiquette and Trainspotting the mini-seriesHoliday chicPacking for holiday can be tricky but could get a whole lot harder if you tried to enact the idea behind Kate...
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Irvine Welsh: is there such a thing as a national literature?
On day three of the Edinburgh World Writers' Conference, Irvine Welsh takes up the question, first raised by Hugh MacDiarmid in his 1962 lecture, of whether writing can still be undertaken within a...
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Irvine Welsh tears into Booker prize
Booker sets upper-class Englishness as cultural yardstick, says Trainspotting author at Edinburgh writers' conferenceIrvine Welsh, the author of Trainspotting, lashed out at the "highly...
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Jenny Colgan: what I'm thinking about ... the psychogeography of Edinburgh
'Rightly or wrongly it is easy to love a city with its messy bits hidden - 'aw fur coat and nae knickers', as Weegies like to say'"It's just weird" a friend says as we stride down the grey boulevard...
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Irvine Welsh's Booker prize attack makes scant sense
His contention that the award measures all literature against upper-class English values doesn't match the evidenceBooker-bashing is often described as a "national sport". But that should be called...
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Christmas gifts 2012: the best fiction
Justine Jordan wraps up the year's novels, short stories and graphic fictionAs with Wolf Hall three years ago, Christmas novel-wrapping will be dominated by Hilary Mantel's latest feat of historical...
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Review Christmas quiz 2012
Who worked all day, and got half-drunk at night? Identify Margaret Thatcher's fictional appearances. And in whose memoir does a chapter titled 'Cocainus' appear? Try our fiendish literary quiz. Check...
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Scottish independence will allow us to become more British, says Irvine Welsh
Trainspotting author says political separation 'could promote the cultural unity that the UK state is constantly undermining'Getting rid of the "imperialist baggage" of the UK state through Scottish...
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Down and dirty: watch the first trailer for Irvine Welsh's Filth
A talking tapeworm is the least of James McAvoy's problems in Filth, the new adaptation of Irvine "Trainspotting" Welsh's novel. In this definitely 18-certificate trailer, we see booze flow, punches...
View ArticleFilth: watch the trailer for James McAvoy's new film - video
Watch the first trailer for Filth, which is based on the book by Irvine Welsh and stars James McAvoy
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Ewan McGregor ready to work with Danny Boyle on Trainspotting sequel Porno
Trainspotting star keen to take part in Danny Boyle's planned film based loosely on Irvine Welsh's bookEwan McGregor has confirmed his willingness to star in Danny Boyle's planned sequel to the cult...
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Tributes pour in for Iain Banks, 'one of Scotland's literary greats'
Authors including Neil Gaiman, Irvine Welsh, John O'Farrell and Ian Rankin remember much-loved writer, who has died aged 59Obituary: 'A man of decided political views, often expressed with humorous...
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James McAvoy: 'There will be people who walk out of the cinema I'm sure'
Macbeth, Atonement, X-Men… James McAvoy's range is astonishing. Now he brings us Irvine Welsh's abusive, drug-fuelled cop in Filth – a film so shocking it almost didn't get released. Craig McLean talks...
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James McAvoy 'would play Jimmy Savile', says Irvine Welsh
Promoting their new collaboration, Filth, the Scottish author reports McAvoy would be keen to play the disgraced TV host in a Welsh-penned film, though actor himself denies saying thisJames McAvoy has...
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Prisoners has captive audience on weak weekend at UK box office
Jake Gyllenhaal cop drama was the only film to deliver a gross in excess of £1m, though Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine sneaked a nifty total to become his biggest ever opener• Read Mark Kermode's review of...
View ArticleFilth star James McAvoy: 'There's a freeing of intelligence that can come...
The star of a film based on Irvine Welsh's scandalous novel talks about playing debauched policeman Bruce RobertsonHenry Barnes
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Imogen Poots: Filth, drugs, debauchery and tea shops
In the film adaptation of Irvine Welsh's Filth, Imogen Poots plays it straight alongside James McAvoy's hideously corrupt policeman, the latest in a series of eyecatching supporting roles. So does she...
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Filth – review
James McAvoy gives it plenty of welly in the brutal screen version of Irvine Welsh's 1998 novel This Irvine Welsh tale brings us what amounts to Acid Rain on Leith – on St Swithin's Day. It is a brutal...
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