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| Audio Tape HarperCollins Audio (2001) |
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The Wasp Factory
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Whit
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The Bridge
| About The Author lain Banks was born in Fife in 1954. An only child, his father was an Admiralty officer and his mother a professional ice skater. At Stirling University, he read English Literature with Philosophy and Psychology and he now holds honorary doctorates from that university and St. Andrews. During vacations, he took odd jobs as a hospital porter, estate worker, pier porter (on Clydeside docks), road worker, dustman and gardener. He now lives with his wife in Fife, in a house overlooking the Forth Bridge. lain Banks had written several novels (mostly science fiction), before submitting The Wasp Factory to Macmillan Publishers. It was picked out of the publisher’s ‘slush pile’ as an unsolicited manuscript and published in 1984 (on lain’s 30th birthday). The critical reaction varied widely from the Daily Telegraph ‘one of the most brilliant first novels I have come across for some time’ and the Financial Times, ‘A Gothic horror story of quite exceptional quality ...an outstandingly good read,’ to the Irish Times ‘It is a sick, sick world when the confidence and investment of an astute firm of publishers is justified by a work of unparalleled depravity’. The Mail on Sunday concluded ‘If a nastier, more vicious or distasteful novel appears this spring, I shall be surprised. But there is unlikely to be a better one either.’ After the publication of two further mainstream novels, Walking on Glass and The Bridge, Banks’ published his first science fiction novel, Consider Phlebas. In this novel, he introduced his socialist utopia, The Culture, which has featured in many of his SF novels in various guises. Banks took the opportunity of crossing genres to put back into his name the middle initial ‘M’ for Menzies, his family name. A regular fixture on the bestseller lists, lain Banks’ novels have also been adapted variously: The Wasp Factory for theatre, Complicity for film and The Crow Road for television in a successful four-part BBC television series (now video), starring Joseph McFadden, Bill Paterson and Peter Capaldi. Espedair Street was serialised on BBC Radio Four early in 1998, with John Gordon Sinclair as Weird, Paul Gambuccini narrating and the songs and music written by Banks himself. In 1997, composer Gary Lloyd released a CD of music based around The Bridge that included passages from the book read by lain Banks. In 1993, Granta chose lain Banks as one of the Best of Young British Novelists. A compilation of lain’s favourite records was released by EMI on CD in March 1999 as part of the Emi Songbook Series. Called Personal Effects, the songs range from Bowie to The Sex Pistols and from Radiohead to Neneh Cherry. The Times has acclaimed lain Banks `the most imaginative British novelist of his generation’. lain Banks lives in fife, Scotland. | Bibliography |
The Wasp Factory
by Iain Banks
