George Mackay Brown

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George Mackay Brown OBE (born October 17, 1921 in Stromness , Orkney , † April 13, 1996 in Kirkwall , Orkney) was a Scottish poet and writer living on Orkney . He wrote poems, dramas, novels, short stories, essays, children's stories, radio plays and fairy tales. Part of his work, which comprises more than 80 titles, is available in German translation.

Life

George Mackay Brown, the youngest of six children of the post office clerk John Brown and his wife Mary Jane Mackay Brown, lived and lived in Stromness and rarely left the islands and only for short trips that hardly took him beyond the borders of Great Britain . For ten years he suffered from severe tuberculosis and was therefore unable to pursue a regular job. It was only at the age of 34 that he was able to begin studying English at Newbattle Abbey near Edinburgh . Many of his texts were set to music by the composer Peter Maxwell Davies , whose musical style had a lasting influence on the close collaboration with the poet. Although he started writing at an early age, he did not become known to the general public until he was 60. Brown, a member of the Poets' Pub , a circle of the writing and poetry avant-garde of Scotland from the 1940s / 1950s, is one of the leading poets of the 20th century in Scotland with his poetic work. In 1994 his novel Beside the Ocean of Time was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and received the Saltire Book of the Year for it.

Works (excerpt)

  • Beside the Ocean of Time / Taugenasst und DichterTraum, Roman 1994
  • Vinland / Weinland, novel 1993
  • Six Lives of Fankle the Cat , Children's Stories 1980
  • For the Islands I Sing / The singer of the island, autobiography 2000
  • Travelers , poems 2001

Awards

literature

  • Ron Ferguson: George Mackay Brown. The wound and the gift. Saint Andrew Press, Edinburgh 2011, ISBN 978-0-7152-0935-6 .
  • Maggie Fergusson: George Mackay Brown The life . John Murray, London 2006, ISBN 0719556597

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Booker Prizes Backlist | The Booker Prizes. Beside the Ocean of Time. Retrieved August 3, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Brown, George Mackay
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Scottish poet and writer
DATE OF BIRTH October 17, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH Stromness, Orkney
DATE OF DEATH April 13, 1996
Place of death Kirkwall