Surviving

Allan Massie is the author of twenty novels and a dozen non-fiction works. His six novels about the Roman Empire have been widely translated, and have been particularly successful in Brazil. Gore Vidal has defined him as a "master of the long-ago historical novel". His twentieth century novels have been compared by French critics to Balzac and Stendhal, by Muriel Spark to Thomas Mann, and by others to Evelyn Waugh. He thinks such comparisons as pleasing as they are ridiculously exaggerated. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, and has been given an honorary doctorate by Strathclyde University.

"... an impressive novel which poses moral and philosophical questions but works equally well as a compelling thriller." - Joe Farrell in TLS "Massie is one of the best Scottish writers of his generation. Surviving - sympathetic, unsentimental, atmospheric - is an overdue reminder of how good he is." - Alan Taylor in The Herald "The dark brilliance of Massie's style ... Surviving may be an instant classic in the alcoholic literary canon." - Patrick Skene Catling in The Spectator "... an excellent little novel." - Ben Jeffery in The Guardian "This is Scotland's Stendhal at his best: clipped but sympathetic to this fragile characters in their haunted world." - Christopher Harvie in The Sunday Herald