Scottish Fiction and the British Empire

An innovative exploration of the role of the Empire in Scottish literature. Scotland was an active - albeit junior - partner in the British Empire. But the poorer and more marginalised parts of Scottish society shared something of Ireland's experience of being at the receiving end of British Imperial power. This created a long-lasting, complex, and eloquent debate among Scottish novelists about the nature of Scotland's involvement in the power-structures of British society. Some Scottish writers, such as Sir Walter Scott and John Buchan, did much to generate and promote Imperial Britain's sense of itself, and these authors tended to be part of the Scottish elite. However, an alternative strand of Scottish writing was produced by authors with roots in non-elite, 'subaltern' Scotland - writers from the past such as James Hogg, Mary Macpherson ('Mairi Mhor nan Oran'), and Lewis Grassic Gibbon, as well as present-day writers such as James Kelman and Irvine Welsh. Douglas Mack argues that such writers actively challenge the Imperial Grand Narrative and demonstrates that Scottish fiction was active and influential both in shaping and in subverting the assumptions that underpinned the Empire.