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Episode details

Radio 4,10 Dec 2012,43 mins

Scotland - Ian Rankin and Alasdair Gray

Start the Week

Available for over a year

On Start the Week Andrew Marr explores what it means to be Scottish. The streets and history of Edinburgh come alive in Ian Rankin's crime novels, while the Glaswegian writer and artist Alasdair Gray marries elements of realism, fantasy and science fiction in his work. With a long history of Scottish emigration, T M Devine looks at the impact on the nation left behind. And the theatre critic of The Scotsman, Joyce McMillan, believes that despite the coming Referendum on Independence, it's the arts and not politics that define Scottish-ness. Producer: Katy Hickman. Image © Alasdair Gray, A Life in Pictures, Canongate Books.

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