In a pre-festival exclusive event and part of the Booked! programme, the acclaimed author was joined by actor Robert Carlyle at Edinburgh’s Usher Hall.

As filming gets underway on Danny Boyle’s highly anticipated Trainspotting sequel, the pair discussed how Renton, Spud, Sick Boy and Begbie all stepped aboard the slow train to disaster. They also introduced new novel, The Blade Artist, which catches up with Welsh’s iconic character, Francis Begbie – a beguiling, often sickening but never uninteresting character.

It was a treat to hear Begbie himself read from the novel, which explores his later life as an artist trying to keep his violent past at bay. Carlyle will reprise the role in Boyle’s forthcoming sequel, T2.