Description
Book SynopsisThis selected works of Sorley MacLean brings together published poetry from MacLean's own edited volumes of Poetry. The poems will be given in their original Gaelic with English translations and introduced by Angus Peter Campbell and Aonghas Mac Neacail.
Sorley MacLean was born on the island of Raasay in 1911. He was brought up within a family and community immersed in Gaelic language and culture, particularly song. He studied English at Edinburgh University from 1929, taking a first-class honours degree. Despite this influence, he eventually adopted Gaelic as the medium most appropriate for his poetry. He translated much of his own work into English, opening it up to a wider public. He fought in North Africa during World War II, before taking up a career in teaching, holding posts on Mull, in Edinburgh and finally as Head Teacher at Plockton High School. Amongst other awards and honours, he received the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 1990. He died in 1996 at the age of 85.
Trade Review'A collection that explodes the cliche of Gaelic poetry'
* Guardian on Sorley MacLean: Collected Poems *
'Convincingly demonstrates why MacLean was as important an influence on the badachd as Eliot and Pound were on English-language poetry'
* Sunday Herald on Sorley MacLean: Collected Poems *
'One of the very greatest of the Gaelic poets - and one of the great love poets of the world'
-- Iain Crichton Smith
