![]() Gray came to fiction late, publishing his first novel Lanark at the age of 46 in 1981. The few times I met him in life, he was all these things in a unique combination of polite, frank, detached (or maybe more truly differently attached), sanguine, many-voiced, wise, warm, kind, hilarious, acutely truth-telling, uncompromisingly articulate.” ![]() ![]() His generosity and brilliance in person – felt by everyone who knew him even a little – were a source of astonishing and liberating warmth. The novelist Ali Smith called Gray “a modern-day William Blake” and said: “He was an artist in every form. “Today, we mourn the loss of a genius, and think of his family.” ![]() In a statement, Gray’s family thanked his friends and hospital staff, calling him “an extraordinary person very talented and, even more importantly, very humane”.Īmong those to pay tribute were author Val McDermid, who credited Gray for having “transformed our expectations of what Scottish literature could be”, and Scotland’s first minister Nicola Sturgeon, who called him “one of Scotland’s literary giants, and a decent, principled human being.” “He’ll be remembered best for the masterpiece that is Lanark, but everything he wrote reflected his brilliance,” she added on Twitter. ![]() Gray’s publisher Canongate announced the news on Sunday, saying he died early in the morning after being hospitalised for a short illness in his home city of Glasgow. ![]()
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