Anya Tranter

I got to know Alasdair Gray by synchronicity and chance. I feel the books were meant for me and put in my path, but it took me a long time to recognise it.

What does Alasdair Gray mean to you?

Explain yourself?

I am reading Lanark, and it’s one of the only books I have already thought about rereading before I’ve even finished it. I have ADHD and life-long issues with mood etc. For some reason this book in all its complicated woven lurching around, really flowed and soothed my rattle bag mind.

Encompassing - it felt like being held and I related to the character. Stimulating - like a nourishing food triggers enzymes to make you want more good food. Uplifting - as he turns mundane potentially depressing, paralysing ‘Grey’ life into gold, and helps you look for the infinite heavens through chinks in clouds, no matter how heavy and gloaming.

How did you get to know Alasdair or his work?

I am Anya from Exeter, a 60-year-old mum. I was a muralist painter’s helper way back in the 90s. Together we painted some huge murals in freezing conditions for a pittance for the Council. We were very young and penniless. God, it was hard and grim. I always said as a child I want to paint ‘muriels’.

I have discovered Alasdair’s work in a strange process like it was meant for me. Twelve years ago I saw a picture in a vintage bookshop that made me stop in my tracks. I wanted it immediately. It was quite pricey for me. Weeks went by and it was still there. I bought it. It was A life in Pictures.

I am a book hoarder and it went on my shelf. One day I pulled it down had a peep inside and had an ADHD overwhelm. There was too much in it - it wasn’t the right time. I put it back and never looked at it for 12 years. I did not know who or where it came from.

About a year ago I saw a book in a charity shop, once again it was the cover that grabbed me. It was Lanark. It went on my shelf too. I didn’t make the name connection.

Then I went to the pictures and saw Poor Things. Absolutely loved it. I was fascinated and interested enough to read articles about it. And finally, the penny dropped! It was the same man who wrote Lanark and also the giant book of art. I am very slow at picking up on things.

Articles about him probably did push me to start reading this brick of a book. I’m a slow reader. AND FINALLY... I started the book last year and through the last months as my dad was dying and life was hard, travelling and supporting him, Lanark became a much-appreciated transportation into another’s world, hopes, dreams and troubles. It is 7 months later, and I am in the Epilogue. Still loving it and planning to read it all again and discover more of his books. I feel like I have found a friend in him.

What have you done differently because of Alasdair?

I recently went to see a Grayson Perry exhibition that I was blown away by. I felt so strongly the connection between the two artists work that I had to look up when they were born, who came first etc. I had no idea that Alasdair was born so long ago. Just that Lanark was published in 1981, the same sort of time that Grayson Perry was starting off. Even their names had a connection.

It was the vastness and scope of the works and subject matter - socio-political, identity in Grayson’s work and socio-political, spiritual in Gray’s. Even the ink work, with script encompassed in the images. So I know now that Gray came first. Maybe Grayson was inspired by Gray? I love them both.

Even the fact that Grayson’s tapestries and a lot of other work centres around the place in this country he was formed and grew up in - Essex. Just as Gray has Glasgow running through his blood and printed in his DNA. It’s the first time for years that I’ve really been fascinated or emotionally involved enough with any art to take a real dive into it. So that is the difference it has made to me. Ignited interest.

How does Alasdair continue to influence or inspire you?

I want to go to Glasgow from Devon where I live. See his murals and see the great city that inspired Lanark. Also I am on a mission to read more of his books. I even fantasised about trying to find an original art work. That would be exciting.

Anything else about Alasdair you’d like to add?

I’m so happy to have discovered his story, history and work. He was such an earnest believer in the potential for a better world and societies - of people who care for each other and build a decent society that reflects it. In these dystopian nightmarish times of 2026, he is a beacon of remembering your hopes and dreams.

Even if you seem like a mad person proclaiming something impossible into the roaring winds of cynicism and hopelessness, it is better to go down dreaming than to allow your fire to be turned down to a smothering, engulfing grey miasma choking all light - much like the pall that cloaks Unthank. The sun is still there - you have to find it.