The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Exhibition offers ‘unique insight’ to author Banks’ life
Personal archives of the late Scottish author Iain Banks are to be shown in public for the first time at his former university.
A selection of neverbefore-seen writings and correspondence from the Dunfermline-born writer form part of an exhibition at Stirling University.
The collection contains notes by Banks showing his writing process, personal correspondence with fans, fan art inspired by his work, and a poem he wrote as a student at the university.
It also features annotated schedules, international translations of his books, and correspondence with translators.
The Wasp Factory writer died in June 2013 after a short battle with cancer of the gallbladder. He was 59.
The exhibition was created by history and heritage students as part of their exhibition interpretation and design course.
The students were granted access to the collection, which was deposited with the university archives after Banks’ death, and were set the task of creating a display celebrating the author’s work.
Iain (M) Banks: Two Authors, One Man launches at a free event in the university’s library tomorrow and will run until August 30.
Banks studied English literature, philosophy and psychology at Stirling University, from which he graduated in 1975.
He went on to worldwide acclaim as the author of more than 20 books, including The Wasp Factory, The Bridge and The Crow Road. He wrote literary and science fiction too, the latter using the name Iain M Banks.
Sarah Bromage, head of Stirling University Collections, said: “We are delighted to be sharing these never-before-seen items, which give a unique insight into Iain Banks’ writing life and the life of an acclaimed author.
“Two Authors, One Man is unmissable for anyone interested in his work and in creative writing in general.”
The writer’s will revealed he had an estate valued at more than £3.6 million at the time of his death. After leaving small gifts totalling £14,000 to friends, Banks instructed that his estate and all future royalties from his works should go to his widow Adele Hartley.
The pair married in a romantic Highland ceremony just weeks after Banks discovered his cancer was terminal.
Banks stunned fans when he revealed he was terminally ill two months before his death by publishing a statement on his website which began: “I am officially very poorly.”
His final novel The Quarry, about a man battling terminal cancer, was published shortly after his death.