How Late It Was, How Late

Winner of the 1994 Booker Prize, this witty, controversial, and brilliant bestselling novel has been compared to the works of Joyce, Beckett, and many other masters.

A raw, wry vision of human survival in a bureaucratic world, How Late It Was, How Late opens one Sunday morning in Glasgow, Scotland, as Sammy, an ex-convict with a penchant for shoplifting, awakens in a lane and tries to remember the two-day drinking binge that landed him there.  Then, things only get worse.  Sammy gets in a fight with some soldiers, lands in jail, and discovers that he is completely blind.  His girlfriend disappears, the police probe him endlessly, and his stab at Disability Compensation embroils him in the Kafkaesque red tape of the welfare system.

A masterpiece of black humor, subtle political parody, and Scottish lower-class vernacularHow Late It Was, How Late is a classic-to-be from one of today's most talented novelists.

James Kelman was born in Glasgow in 1946. A Disaffection won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and was short-listed for the Booker Prize, which he won in 1994 for How Late It Was, How Late.