Irvine Welsh

Welsh was working for Edinburgh council housing when Trainspotting appeared in 1993, written largely in Scots and built as loosely linked episodes rather than a plot. Its subject is addiction on an Edinburgh estate in the middle eighties and the friendships that do not survive it, and the Danny Boyle film two years later turned a difficult book into something people quoted at each other. He has kept going back to the same characters across decades, forward in Porno and backward in Skagboys. Earlier he had played in punk bands in London and taken a business degree. He writes plays and screenplays as well, and has lived for long stretches in Chicago, Dublin and Miami.