In Conversation With Irvine Welsh

Irvine Welsh was born in the great city of Edinburgh and matured in the housing schemes of Leith, West Pilton and Muirhouse. Neither school nor conventional employment appealed, but he was inspired to write after experiencing the explosions of Punk and Rave first hand.

Trainspotting, Welsh's debut novel, was rejected from the Man Booker Prize shortlist, allegedly for offending the judges. It went on to sell over a million copies in the UK alone and was adapted into an iconic film by Danny Boyle, starring Ewan McGregor, Robert Carlyle and Kelly Macdonald. Porno was adapted into T2: Trainspotting, a sequel that reunited the original cast and crew.

Renton, Begbie, Sick Boy and Spud, the much-loved antiheroes of Trainspotting, inhabit a fictional universe based on Welsh's experience of an inner-city Scotland blighted by Thatcherism and drug abuse. This universe has often been revisited in novels including Skagboys, The Blade Artist and A Decent Ride. It has been augmented by iconic characters from subsequent books, like Juice Terry, Post Alec, Jonty McKay and, trying to keep them (and themselves) in order, wayward cops Bruce Roberson and Ray Lennox. Both of whom were played to devastating effect by James McAvoy in the movie Filth, and on TV, Dougray Scott in Crime.

Now the author of fourteen novels, including the forthcoming Resolution, the third in the hit TV Crime series, and four books of shorter fiction, Welsh enjoys a dedicated global readership and tweets prolifically, mainly about tennis and corrupt politicians. He serves as the Official Ambassador of the Homeless World Cup and works with local, national and international charities. He currently lives between Edinburgh, London and Miami.

Irvine Welsh has been involved in dance music for most of his life, as a DJ and promoter and is a partner, with Carl Loben and Steve Mac, in the Brighton-based record label Jack Said What.