Books by George Mackay Brown

In this new Selected Poems, Kathleen Jamie explores the multi-faceted world of George Mackay Brown's Orkney, the poet's lifelong home and inspiration. George Mackay Brown's concerns were the ancestral world, the communalities of work, the fables and religious stories which he saw as underpinning mortal lives. Brown believed from the outset that poets had a social role and his true task was to fulfil that role. This is not the attitude of a shrinking violet, tentatively exploring his 'voice'. Art was sprung from the community, and his role as poet to know that community, to sing its stories. But there was also room for introspection; the poet's task was simultaneously to 'interrogate silence'.

George Mackay Brown was a master of the short story form and produced a steady stream of short fiction collections, starting with A Calendar of Love (1967) and include A Time to Keep (1969) and Hawkfall (1974), as well as his poetry collections and novels. In this selection, edited and introduced by Malachy Tallack, we explore the author's Orkney and the ups and downs of the crofters and fishermen there. These magical stories, drawn from ancient lore and modern life, strip life down to the essentials.

First published in 1969, An Orkney Tapestry, George Mackay Brown's seminal work, is a unique look at Orkney through the eye of a poet and a celebration of Orkney's people, language and history. Unavailable for many years, this new edition has a specially commissioned Introduction written by Kirsteen McCue and Linden Bicket.

"Vinland", George Mackay Brown's fourth novel, follows the turbulent life of Ranald Sigmundson, a young boy born into the Dark Ages, when Orkney was torn between its Viking past and its Christian future.

Features a collection of two stories.

Bestowed at birth with two gifts, an ivory flute and a bag of silver and gold coins, a young girl wanders through time. She is destined to pursue the dragon of war and before he consumes the world in flames, subdue him not with violence but music. Moving across the battlefields from East to West, the girl bears witness to the suffering and brutality of war throughout history ...

Greenvoe, the community on the Orkney Island of Hellya, has existed unchanged for generations. George Mackay Brown has recreated a week in its life, mixing history with personality in a sparkling mixture of prose and poetry.

The legendary poet of the Orkneys - who later became one of Scotland''s most loved C20th poets - George Mackay Brown: this is his first published book of poems, here reissued with a new introduction by Kathleen Jamie and illustrations by Julia Sorrell. George Mackay Brown was born in Stromness, Orkney, on 17 October 1921. He died there in 1996. His many awards include a Society of Authors Travel Award, 1968; SAC Literature Prize, 1969; Katherine Mansfield Menton Short Story Prize, 1971; Hon. LLD from Dundee University, 1977; OBE, 1974; James Tait Black Memorial Prize 1987 (for The Golden Bird). He was nominated for the Booker Prize in 1994 for his novel Beside the Ocean of Time. He left behind him an extraordinary body of work: novels, short stories, poetry, journalism and even two operatic collaborations with Peter Maxwell Davis.

When the shopkeeper gives Jenny a skinny, black kitten she has no idea who she has adopted. Fankle is no ordinary cat. The fiercely clever feline has lived six lives so far: lives of adventure, danger, fortune and poverty. He's stared down angry pirates, started a blood feud, won a war, advised an empress and leapt onto the moon. Fankle tells Jenny tales of his former lives -- with the king of pirates, in ancient Egypt and even with the Empress of China. So what is he doing living in a crofter's cottage in Orkney? This classic novel by George Mackay Brown is a rich and rewarding read for adults and children alike.