George Mackay Brown

George Mackay Brown was one of Scotland's greatest twentieth-century writers, but in person a bundle of paradoxes. He had a wide international reputation, but hardly left his native Orkney. A prolific poet, admired by such fellow poets as Seamus Heaney, Ted Hughes and Charles Causley, and hailed by the composer Peter Maxwell Davies as 'the most positive and benign influence ever on my own efforts at creation', he was also an accomplished novelist (shortlisted for the 1994 Booker Prize for Beside the Ocean of Time) and a master of the short story. When he died in 1996, he left behind an autobiography as deft as it is ultimately uninformative.

'The lives of artists are as boring and also as uniquely fascinating as any or every other life,' he claimed. Never a recluse, he appeared open to his friends, but probably revealed more of himself in his voluminous correspondence with strangers. He never married - indeed he once wrote, 'I have never been in love in my life.' But some of his most poignant letters and poems were written to Stella Cartwright, 'the Muse of Rose Street', the gifted but tragic figure to whom he was once engaged and with whom he kept in touch until the end of her short life.

Maggie Fergusson interviewed George Mackay Brown several times and is the only biographer to whom he, a reluctant subject, gave his blessing. Through his letters and through conversations with his wide acquaintance, she discovers that this particular artist's life was not only fascinating but vivid, courageous and surprising.

Winner of Marsh Biography Award 2007
Winner of Sundial Scottish Arts Council Book Award: First Book 2007
Winner of Saltire Society Scottish First Book of the Year Award 2006
Short-listed for James Tait Black Memorial Prize (Biography) 2007
Short-listed for Costa Biography Award 2006

“Other biographies to relish include Maggie Fergusson's life of the poet George Mackay Brown... - Boyd Tonkin, Independent In Maggie Fergusson, Mackay Brown has had the good fortune to find the kind of biographer with whom every writer should be blessed. She writes lucidly, with restraint and without sentimentality. Her affection and sympathy for her subject shine through but she never shirks from showing his darker side. He was a deeply troubled man cursed with melancholia whose legacy was prose and poetry of luminous virtuosity. If there is a better biography of a 20th century Scottish writer I look forward to reading it - Sunday Herald Outstanding... This is an extraordinarily good book; it is sensitive, witty and has an excellent sense of the vitality of the apparently unimportant details that make up lives and characters. - Lucy Lethbridge, New Statesman An affectionate but clear-sighted biography. Read it alongside his Collected Poems and step into the 'small green world' of [the Orkneys] - The Times Unmissable - Glasgow Herald [Fergusson's] biography is infused with love and understanding of the man and his work... she writes with a delicate precision - Sunday Times, Jeremy Lewis Through his letter and conversations with many friends, Maggie Ferguson discovers that George's life was vivid, courageous and surprising - Scottish Field He deserves a good biography but has got a magnificent one; sympathetic, affectionate, but not glossing over his weaknesses - Allan Massie, Daily Telegraph”

Other biographies to relish include Maggie Fergusson's life of the poet George Mackay Brown... - Boyd Tonkin, Independent

In Maggie Fergusson, Mackay Brown has had the good fortune to find the kind of biographer with whom every writer should be blessed. She writes lucidly, with restraint and without sentimentality. Her affection and sympathy for her subject shine through but she never shirks from showing his darker side. He was a deeply troubled man cursed with melancholia whose legacy was prose and poetry of luminous virtuosity. If there is a better biography of a 20th century Scottish writer I look forward to reading it - Sunday Herald

Outstanding... This is an extraordinarily good book; it is sensitive, witty and has an excellent sense of the vitality of the apparently unimportant details that make up lives and characters. - Lucy Lethbridge, New Statesman

An affectionate but clear-sighted biography. Read it alongside his Collected Poems and step into the 'small green world' of [the Orkneys] - The Times

Unmissable - Glasgow Herald

[Fergusson's] biography is infused with love and understanding of the man and his work... she writes with a delicate precision - Sunday Times, Jeremy Lewis

Through his letter and conversations with many friends, Maggie Ferguson discovers that George's life was vivid, courageous and surprising - Scottish Field

He deserves a good biography but has got a magnificent one; sympathetic, affectionate, but not glossing over his weaknesses - Allan Massie, Daily Telegraph

Maggie Fergusson has written for newspapers and magazines including The Times, the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph, Harpers & Queen and the Independent magazine, and is Secretary of the Royal Society of Literature. She is married with two daughters and lives in London. This is her first book.

George Mackay Brown was one of Scotland's greatest twentieth-century writers, but in person a bundle of paradoxes. He had a wide international reputation, but hardly left his native Orkney. A prolific poet, admired by such fellow poets as Seamus Heaney, Ted Hughes and Charles Causley, and hailed by the composer Peter Maxwell Davies as 'the most positive and benign influence ever on my own efforts at creation', he was also an accomplished novelist (shortlisted for the 1994 Booker Prize for Beside the Ocean of Time) and a master of the short story. When he died in 1996, he left behind an autobiography as deft as it is ultimately uninformative. 'The lives of artists are as boring and also as uniquely fascinating as any or every other life,' he claimed. Never a recluse, he appeared open to his friends, but probably revealed more of himself in his voluminous correspondence with strangers. He never married - indeed he once wrote, 'I have never been in love in my life.' But some of his most poignant letters and poems were written to Stella Cartwright, 'the Muse of Rose Street', the gifted but tragic figure to whom he was once engaged and with whom he kept in touch until the end of her short life.Maggie Fergusson interviewed George Mackay Brown several times and is the only biographer to whom he, a reluctant subject, gave his blessing. Through his letters and through conversations with his wide acquaintance, she discovers that this particular artist's life was not only fascinating but vivid, courageous and surprising.

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