George’s memory is inseparable from Orkney, where he was born the youngest child of a poor family and which he rarely left. His mother was a beautiful woman who spoke only Gaelic and his father was a wit, mimic and singer, who also doubled as postman and tailor. Tuberculosis framed George’s early life and kept him in a kind of limbo. He discovered alcohol which gave him insights into the workings of the mind. While attending the University of Edinburgh he came into contact with Goodsir Smith, MacDiarmid and Norman MacCaig – and Stella Cartwright with whom perhaps all of them were in love.
By the time of his death in 1996 he was recognised as one of the great writers of his time and country.
George Mackay Brown was one of the major Scottish literary figures of the twentieth century – a prolific poet and novelist, he took much of his inspiration from the myths and landscape of Orkney, and also from his deep Catholic faith. He was born in Orkney in 1921 and died there in 1996. Following his first book in 1954 he published many more, including plays, novels and poems. Sir Peter Maxwell Davies has set much of his work to music. In 1988 he was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for
The Golden Bird. In 1994 his
Beside the Ocean of Time was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and judged Book of the Year by the Saltire Society.
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