Allan Cameron (born 1952) is a Scottish author and translator.
Early life
Allan Cameron was brought up in Nigeria and Bangladesh. He worked at sea, and at the age of twenty, he moved to Italy, where he lived for many years. At the age of 31, Cameron went to university and after graduating, he worked in the same department he had studied at. In 1992, he moved to Scotland. Cameron now lives in Glasgow.
Career
Cameron has published articles in the daily newspaper L’Unità, the Italian current affairs magazine Reset, and the academic journals Teoria Politica and Renaissance Studies. He also contributed the comments on Pope, Hume and Winstanley to Alasdair Gray's Book of Prefaces. His unpublished works include three plays, two in Italian (Quei baffoni di Giorgio Scali and Grembizzot: gli ultimi giorni di uno sconfitto) and one in English (Calvin’s Christ). He has also produced a number of short stories and poetry in both languages.
Cameron has translated seventeen books by a variety of writers, including the post-war Italian philosopher Norberto Bobbio, the president of the European Commission Romano Prodi, and the historian Eric Hobsbawm.
He has published two novels, The Golden Menagerie and The Berlusconi Bonus.
Cameron has published a book on language, In Praise of the Garrulous (2008), a collection of poetry, Presbyopia (2009), and two collections of short stories, Can the Gods Cry? (2011) and On the Heroism of Mortals (2012).
From 2008, Cameron is the editorial director of Vagabond Voices. It is a small, independent publishing house based in Glasgow, committed to introducing new titles from Scottish authors and translating fiction from other languages. Vagabond Voices list aims to reflect literary ambition, promote innovative writers, and provide readers with a range of challenging titles.
Novels
The Golden Menagerie (Luath Press Ltd, 2004)
"Allan Cameron’s The Golden Menagerie is a work almost impossible to classify, although it is just possible to fit this marriage of fantastic invention and reflections on the human predicament and our times, not without a hint of autobiography, into the capacious container called 'the novel'. In some ways it recalls the conversation pieces of Thomas Love Peacock, although the invention is more fantastic. Whatever we call it, it is consistently fascinating and readable, the work of a writer of high intelligence who has a stylish way with words". Eric Hobsbawm
"Cameron’s work is neither deliberately obscure, nor is it solemn history or pompous tract á la Aleister Crowley. The Golden Menagerie treads, flies, chatters and barks that fine, aureate line between pretentiousness and patronization which is drawn from the fact that the author knows his stuff and relishes the 'telling' of it as though he were a reader coming across the work for the very first time. This is not easy to pull off, but Cameron has done it. This is a beautiful tale – beautiful, that is, in the old, 'Golden Mean' sense of the word, with its connotations of symmetry, elegance and seasoned confusion – where even an ironically bum line of poetic preamble can connote some poignant aspect of life. …The book is highly rewarding, in the richness, precision and humour of its language, the enviable lucidity of its thought and in that classical humanist quality it insinuates, of simultaneous lightness and profundity, a sleight which can alter perception. A sublimation, perhaps. Or a metamorphosis". Suhayl Saadi, Scottish Review of Books
The Berlusconi Bonus (Luath Press Ltd, 2005), (Vagabond Voices, 2010), was translated into Italian and published by Azimut in Rome.
“… a profound, intelligent novel that asks serious, adult questions about what it means to be alive". – Martin Tierney, The Herald
"The Berlusconi Bonus is an adroit and satisfying satire on the iniquities of present-day life from insane consumerism to political mendacity, globalisation to the War on Terror. It is both very funny and an extremely astute analysis of the evil results of a philosophy which sings the victory song of extreme free-market economics." – Peter Wittaker, The New Internationalist
"This book is never funny… Still, I say buy it. It makes you think." – Dominic Hilton, The New Humanist
"Cameron grapples with Fukuyama’s theories on the end of the totalitarian ideologies and a plausible future scenario in which 'all Muslims were either massacred or expelled from the Federation' and there are 'no tradesmen now, and there are no artists, musicians or writers.'" – La Stampa
Short stories
Can the Gods Cry? (Vagabond Voices,2011)