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Hamish Henderson

ISBN: 9781846971327
Author: Timothy Neat
Imprint: Polygon
Publication Date: May 2009
Format: PB
Price: £14.99
Stock Status: in stock

'A huge and memorable achievment,'  - Roger Hutchinson

'A heroic account...the second volume, going by the first cannot arrive too soon.’ - The Scotsman

'Neat’s clear, eloquent style is illuminated with gems unearthed from Henderson’s lifetime of unclassified scrapbooks, diaries, songs, poems and newspaper clippings...Folklorists everywhere will eagerly anticipate the second volume.' - Margaret Bennett

Hamish Henderson lived one of the great lives of twentieth-century Scotland, a dramatic life of epic European scale, a life of major artistic, political and spiritual achievement. Well-known as a songwriter, a poet and a pioneer in the field of Scottish folksong, Henderson was also a highly original translator of poetry – from Gaelic, French, German, Latin and Greek – much of it into Scots. He also translated the work of the Italian socialist Antonio Gramsci, whose Prison Letters he published in English in 1974.

Born in Blairgowrie, Perthshire, in 1919, Hamish Henderson spent his early years in Glenshee before moving to Ireland and then Devon. He won a scholarship to Dulwich College and went on to study Modern Languages at Cambridge. During the Second World War he served in North Africa and Italy with the 51st Highland Division. He died in March 2002. This book, a major study of this charismatic and fascinating man, presents both a detailed biography and an assessment of his place in the context of the twentieth century. It is based on first-hand interviews with those who knew Henderson both personally and professionally as well as detailed research of published and unpublished sources.

Timothy Neat is a writer, film-maker, art historian and countryman. His book The Summer Walkers was awarded the Jena Michaelis Ratcliffe Folklore Award in 1996. He lives in Fife.

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