Simple Fire

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 at Newbattle Abbey College, where he met Edwin Muir, and later at Moray House College of Education. In 1941 he was diagnosed with pulmonary tuberculosis and lived an increasingly reclusive life in Stromness, but he produced, in spite of his poor health, a regular stream of publications from 1954 onwards. These included The Storm (1954), Loaves and Fishes (1959), A Calendar of Love (1967), A Time to Keep (1969), Greenvoe (1972), Hawkfall (1974), Time in a Red Coat (1984) 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.

His work is permeated by the layers of history in Scotland’s past, by quirks of human nature and religious belief, and by a fascination with the world beyond the horizons of the known. He was honoured by the Open University and by the Universities of Dundee and Glasgow. The enduringly successful St Magnus Festival of poetry, prose, music and drama, held annually in Orkney, is his lasting memorial.