The people walking along Tsar Osvobodotel Boulevard last Friday did not pay much attention to the shaven-headed man wearing sunglasses and drinking juice from a plastic cup while dawdling in the nice October weather. He seemed surprised by the invitation for an interview with The Echo in the bit of free time he had between giving autographs to fans and reading parts of his writing at the Military Club.

Even though it was 2.00pm, Irvine Welsh ordered a Bloody Mary. "It is a bit late," he excused himself. "A Bloody Marry is usually a breakfast drink."

The name of Irvine Welsh is widely-known not only among admirers of contemporary literature but also among cinema fans who have seen the movie based on one of his novels, Trainspotting. He came to Bulgaria to participate in the Scottish Literature Festival from October 3-5.

"I came to Bulgaria because I would have never had the opportunity to come here otherwise. It is not a well-known country, not a well-known place that people go to from Scotland," Welsh said and added that he had had a great time here.

The writer pointed out that it was difficult to get an interview with him because instead of talking to journalists, he preferred to meet people in bars and shops. "That way you get more of a feel for the place."

Being the scandalous person and writer he is, Welsh started building his vocabulary in Bulgarian with sentences like "Ebi mu maikata" (Fuck that).

"Bulgaria is nothing like what I expected it to be. It is very cool and laid-back," the writer commented on his first impressions of the country. "It has a very Italian, Mediterranean feel. It is nice change from Scotland because everybody is mental there."

Welsh himself was born in Edinburgh in 1961 and grew up in the working class Muirhouse district. He left school at age 16, and moved to London in order to follow his punk rock vocation. In London, he worked in a variety of jobs and allegedly developed a drug addiction.

In the late 1980s, Welsh moved back to Edinburgh and began to write. His first book of short stories, The Acid House, was published in the UK in 1994. That same year his first novel, Trainspotting, also appeared on the market, bringing him success and popularity. Welsh became a well-known public figure in Britain and the voice of British popular culture.

"My books are about the sort of people who are quite marginalized and frustrated and they maybe feel they do not get the kind of credit from society they feel they are possibly due and they are very frustrated as a result of that," the writer explained. His most popular novel Trainspotting took readers through the lives and thoughts of a group of drug addicts.

The new book Welsh is working on at the moment will be a kind of continuation of Trainspotting. "It is about those guys who start making pornographic films. It is a big subculture now in Scotland. People get drunk in the pub, then they shut the doors of the pub and have sex with each other and video it, and then go back to the pub the next day and drink and play it back," he said about his fourthcoming book entitled Porno.

The author said that most of the things he wrote about were things he had experienced. "I am not a great reflective person, so I tend to write about things that have happened to me.

"I could not write about somebody older than me because I have not lived through that age yet. But I can write about people younger than me because I have lived through that age."

According to Welsh, people like his books because they are dynamic. "I am a completely dynamic person myself. I like action," said the author, who likes to be in a big crowd where people go "mental, no matter whether it is a rave party or a football game.

"I just like the idea of being part of a mental gang."

What Welsh tries to do in his life is to have a good time and enjoy himself. He confessed, however, that even though he was still an enigma to himself, he was not interested in unravelling the mystery.