Justified Sinner 200

2024 marks the 200th anniversary of the publication of James Hogg’s seminal work, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner. The compelling, thrilling and at times horrifying story of the Calvinist Robert Wringhim, who believes that his place in Heaven is predestined – regardless of the havoc he wreaks during his time on Earth – has exerted an influence over Scottish culture more far-reaching than Hogg ever could have anticipated. Over the last two centuries a who’s who of Scottish authors from Robert Louis Stevenson to Ian Rankin and Graeme Macrae Burnett, have credited its influence.

To celebrate this giant of Scottish literature, we present a very special series of six events, which re-examine and reimagine this story, and its bold exploration of the darkest parts of the human soul.

Acclaimed experiential theatre company Grid Iron lead us through the streets and closes of the Old Town in Perambulations of a Justified Sinner, an immersive audio and video journey that brings to life pivotal moments from the novel, rescripted by award-winning author Louise Welsh, and produced by Ray Interactive.

In New Myths, storyteller Kirsty Logan, folksinger Kirsty Law and harpist Esther Swift go deep on ‘the double’, reimagining the novel in contemporary times through the story of Gillian Tod, who grows up in a cult, drawing on everything from Scottish folk history, feminism and Naomi Klein.

Pamela Carter and director Stewart Laing, directors of Paul Bright’s Confessions of a Justified Sinner, reconstruct the text, and their 2013 production, in Extraordinary Trash: A Theatre Essay, supported by the National Theatre of Scotland, for a suitably meta-interpretation that is part-lecture, part-documentary, part-theatre.

Luminaries Ian Rankin and Ever Dundas join the Justified Sinner Book Club panel discussion, Ever Dundas also offers Cut Up the Justified Sinner poetry workshops, and a special Close Read event with James Robertson delves deeper into the many layers of this intriguing and unforgettable book.

Justified Sinner 200 is supported by the Scottish Government’s Festivals EXPO Fund, and by Sir Ewan and Lady Brown.