WRITER

Irvine Welsh

1957 - Today

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Irvine Welsh (born 27 September 1958) is a Scottish novelist and short story writer. His 1993 novel Trainspotting was made into a film of the same name. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Irvine Welsh has received more than 2,235,870 page views. His biography is available in 39 different languages on Wikipedia. Irvine Welsh is the 2,855th most popular writer (down from 2,168th in 2019), the 2,103rd most popular biography from United Kingdom (down from 1,687th in 2019) and the 235th most popular British Writer.

Memorability Metrics

  • 2.2M

    Page Views (PV)

  • 53.37

    Historical Popularity Index (HPI)

  • 39

    Languages Editions (L)

  • 4.21

    Effective Languages (L*)

  • 3.87

    Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Notable Works

Filth
dark, comedy, abuse
With the festive season almost upon him, Detective Sergeant Bruce Robertson is winding down at work and gearing up socially - kicking off Christmas with a week of sex and drugs in Amsterdam. There are irritating flies in the ointment, though, including a missing wife, a nagging cocaine habit, a dramatic deterioration in his genital health, a string of increasingly demanding extra-marital affairs. The last thing he needs is a messy murder to solve. Still it will mean plenty of overtime, a chance to stitch up some colleagues and finally clinch the promotion he craves. But as Bruce spirals through the lower reaches of degradation and evil, he encounters opposition - in the form of truth and ethical conscience - from the most unexpected quarter of all: his anus. In Bruce Robertson, Welsh has created one of the most corrupt, misanthropic characters in contemporary fiction , and has written a dark, disturbing and very funny novel about sleaze, power, and the abuse of everything. At last, a novel that lives up to its name.
1998
Trainspotting
Fiction, Drug addicts, Young men
Scottish writer Irvine Welsh's first novel, Trainspotting, is a collection of short-stories revolving around a group of friends, their drug use, and struggles in the city of Edinburgh.
1993
Glue
Male friendship in fiction, Literature, Male friendship
Keynote/Publisher's Comments: Despite its scale and ambition, Glue has all Irvine Welsh's usual pace and vigour, crackling dialogue, scabrous set-pieces and black, black humour, but it is also a grown-up book about growing up - about the way we live our lives, and what happens to us when things become unstuck.Glue is the story of four boys growing up in the Edinburgh schemes, and about the loyalties, the experiences - and the secrets - that hold them together into their thirties. Four boys becoming men: Juice Terry, the work-shy fanny-merchant, with corkscrew curls and sticky fingers; Billy the boxer: driven, controlled, playing to his strengths; Carl, the Milky Bar Kid, drifting along to his own soundtrack; and the doomed Gally - who has one less skin than everyone and seems to find catastrophe at every corner. As we follow their lives from the seventies into the new century - from punk to techno, from speed to Es - we can see each of them trying to struggle out from under the weight of the conditioning of class and culture, peer pressure and their parents' hopes that maybe their sons will do better than they did. What binds the four of them is the friendship formed by the scheme, their school, and their ambition to escape from both; their loyalty fused in street morality: back up your mates, don't hit women and, most importantly, never grass - on anyone.
2001
The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs
Literature, Diseases, Food habits
The first Irvine Welsh novel in three years. Troubled Environmental Health Officer Danny Skinner is engaged on a quest to uncover what he refers to as 'the bedroom secrets of the master chefs'. He regards the unravelling of this classified information as the key to learning genetic facts about himself and the crippling compulsions that threaten to wreck his young life. The ensuing journey takes him from Europe's festival city of Edinburgh to the foodie capital of America, San Francisco. But the hard-drinking, womanising Skinner has a strange nemesis in the form of model-railway enthusiast Brian Kibby. It is his unfathomable, obsessive hatred of Kibby that takes over everything, threatening to destroy not only Skinner and his mission but also those he loves most dearly. When Kibby contracts a horrific and debilitating mystery virus, Skinner understands that his destiny is inextricably bound to that of his hated rival, and he is faced with a terrible dilemma. *The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs* is a gothic parable about the great obsessions of our time: food, sex and minor celebrity, and is a brilliant examination of identity, male rivalry and the need to belong in the world.
2006
Ecstasy
Social life and customs, Fiction, Literature
With three delightful tales of love and its up and downs, the ever-surprising Irvine Welsh virtually invents a new genre of fiction: the chemical romance. In "Lorraine Goes to Livingston," a best-selling author of Regency romances, paralyzed and bedridden, plans her revenge on a gambling, whoring husband with the aid of her nurse, Lorraine. In "Fortune's Always Hiding," flawed beauty Samantha Worthington enlists a smitten young soccer thug to find the man who marketed. the drug that crippled her from birth - in order to give him a taste of his own disastrous medicine. In the upbeat final tale, "The Undefeated," we experience the transfiguring passion of the miserably married young yuppie Heather and the raver Lloyd from Leith - a grand affair played out to a house music beat.
1996
The Acid House
Social life and customs, Scotland in fiction, Fiction
1995

Among WRITERS

Among writers, Irvine Welsh ranks 2,855 out of 7,302. Before him are William L. Shirer, Heinrich Vogeler, Mahasweta Devi, Phlegon of Tralles, Aleksander Fredro, and Carl Jonas Love Almqvist. After him are Leonid Leonov, Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo, Dmitry Likhachov, Anne McCaffrey, Bernardo Dovizi, and Maurice Sendak.

Most Popular Writers in Wikipedia

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1957, Irvine Welsh ranks 114. Before him are John Lee Ka-chiu, María Conchita Alonso, Steve Lukather, Nellie Kim, Peter Høeg, and Glenn Hoddle. After him are Stephen Dillane, Oliver Hirschbiegel, Nery Pumpido, Jaco Van Dormael, Bernie Mac, and Bruce Rauner.

Others Born in 1957

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In United Kingdom

Among people born in United Kingdom, Irvine Welsh ranks 2,103 out of 8,785. Before him are William Smith (1790), James Edward Smith (1759), Hubert Cecil Booth (1871), Sir William Bowman, 1st Baronet (1816), Glenn Hoddle (1957), and Frank Dicksee (1853). After him are Jane Digby (1807), James Connolly (1868), Anthony Horowitz (1955), Gregory Winter (1951), Barbara Steele (1937), and Miriam Margolyes (1941).

Others born in United Kingdom

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Among WRITERS In United Kingdom

Among writers born in United Kingdom, Irvine Welsh ranks 235. Before him are Josephine Tey (1896), Marion Chesney (1936), James Herriot (1916), George Herbert (1593), John Webster (1578), and Joseph Delaney (1945). After him are Anthony Horowitz (1955), Michael Bond (1926), John Fletcher (1579), Walter Pater (1839), Dodie Smith (1896), and Jack Higgins (1929).

British born Writers

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