About the Author

George Mackay Brown (1921–96) was one of the twentieth century’s most distinguished and original writers. His lifelong inspiration and birthplace, Stromness in Orkney, moulded his view of the world, though he studied in Edinburgh and later at Newbattle Abbey College. In 1941 he was diagnosed with pulmonary tuberculosis and lived an increasingly reclusive life in Stromness, but he produced a regular stream of publications from 1954 onwards. These included A Calendar of Love (1967), A Time to Keep (1969), Greenvoe (1972), Hawkfall (1974), and, notably, the novel Beside the Ocean of Time (1994), which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and won the Saltire Book of the Year.

Reviews

'Skilfully constructed, Mackay Brown weaves together myth, folklore, history, poetry, and even a self-contained play'
*The Lady*

'He transforms everything by passing it through the eye of the needle of Orkney'
*Seamus Heaney*

'[Brown] is a uniquely observant and skilful chronicler of life in his native Orkneys, past and present'
*Times Literary Supplement*

'Brown has perfected a narrative style of great simplicity'
*Douglas Dunn*

'Linden Bicket and Kirsteen McCue have done invaluable service to scholarship'
*The Tablet*

'A rich fusion of ballad, folk tale, short story, drama and environmental writing'
*The Scotsman*

'A celebration of place and people, the book asks troubled questions of the future'
*Herald Book News*