1994Booker 1994
How Late It Was, How Late
James Kelman · b. 1946 · Scotland
Why it matters
Sammy wakes up blind in a police cell after a weekend bender and a beating, and must negotiate the benefits system without sight. The most controversial Booker winner ever: an unbroken Glaswegian voice that put a working-class Scot at literature's center.
At a glance
existentialistpsychological novel
Difficulty 7/10slow pace374 pagesOne unbroken Glaswegian interior voice, no chapters, no narrator standing above the dialect.
Deep dive
Why the most argued-over Booker winner ever refuses to let a single word of 'proper' English into a novel about a man the state has stopped seeing.
