La obra de Donald S. Murray está profundamente arraigada en su herencia insular, explorando la profunda conexión entre la humanidad y el mundo natural. Su escritura, que abarca tanto la poesía como la prosa, a menudo se adentra en complejas emociones humanas con una mezcla de melancolía y esperanza. El estilo distintivo de Murray combina la narración tradicional con una sensibilidad contemporánea, ofreciendo a los lectores narrativas que son a la vez atractivas y que invitan a la reflexión. Su prosa lírica y su perspectiva perspicaz han valido a su obra un importante reconocimiento literario.
Donald S Murray is widely recognised for his empathy and remarkable ability to convey emotion with restraint and poignancy. In this short collection of poems written during lockdown at his Shetland home, Murray explores the changing geography of the island and how it has, in turn, changed him
Every year, ten men from Ness, at the northern tip of the Isle of Lewis, sail north-east for some forty miles to a remote rock called Sulasgeir. Their mission is to catch and harvest the guga; the almost fully grown gannet chicks nesting on the two hundred foot high cliffs that circle the tiny island. The Guga Hunters tells their story.
Scots like to smoke or salt them. The Dutch love them raw. Swedes look on with relish as they open bulging, foul-smelling cans to find them curdling within. Jamaicans prefer them with a dash of chili pepper. Germans and the English enjoy their taste best when accompanied by pickle's bite and brine.The herring has done much to shape both human taste and history. Men cooperated and came into conflict over its shoals, setting out on boats to catch them and straying to bring full nets to shore. Women gutted and salted the catch during the annual harvest and knitted the garments fishermen wore to protect them from the ocean's chill.Following a journey from the western edge of Norway to the east of England, from Shetland and the Outer Hebrides to the fishing ports of the Baltic coast of Germany and the Netherlands, Donald S. Murray has stitched together tales of the fish that was of central importance to the lives of many Europeans, noting how both it--and those involved in its capture--were celebrated in the art, literature, craft, music, and folklore of northern Europe.Blending together politics, science, history, religion, and commercial life, Murray contemplates, too, the possibility of restoring the silver darlings of legend to their long-ago shores.
A powerful, poignant and award-winning novel of the UK's worst peacetime maritime disaster since the Titanic - the 1919 Iolaire tragedy off the coast of Isle of Lewis - written by a son of the Hebrides.
A poisoned breeze blows across the waves ... Operation Cauldron, 1952: Top- secret germ warfare experiments on monkeys and guinea pigs are taking place aboard a vessel moored off the Isle of Lewis. Local villagers Jessie and Duncan encounter strange sights on the deserted beach nearby and suspect the worst.
The book explores the rich social history of Europe's peatlands, moors, bogs, and heaths, highlighting their ecological significance and cultural heritage. It delves into how these landscapes have shaped human activity, folklore, and local economies over time. Through vivid storytelling and historical analysis, it reveals the intricate relationship between people and these unique environments, emphasizing their importance in biodiversity and climate regulation. The narrative intertwines environmental science with cultural insights, offering a comprehensive view of these often-overlooked areas.
Growing up on the edge of Lewis, the vastness of Russia never felt too distant for Donald S Murray. Inspired by the Russian canon, Red Star Over Hebrides draws upon the experiences of his youth in short stories, verse and song, shifting continually between myth and history, the absurd and moving, the satirical and everyday.
'There have always been lighthouses in my life. There has been a closeness and steadiness to our relationship, as if they have kept pace and in close contact with me.' Lighthouses punctuate Scotland’s coastline – a stoic presence on the edge of the landscape. Since the earliest of these hardy structures were raised, they have been a lifeline for seafarers at the mercy of treacherous weather and uncertain navigation. Today over 100 of Scotland's lighthouses are listed buildings. The lighthouse is now one of many maritime resources which act ‘for the safety of all’. But we are still drawn to the solitary life of the keeper, the beauty of the lens of the lamp and the calm reassurance of a flashing light on a distant shore. Donald S Murray explores Scotland’s lighthouses through history, storytelling and the voices of the lightkeepers. From ancient beacons to the work of the Stevensons and the Northern Lighthouse Board, and from wartime strife to automation and preservation, the lighthouses stand as a testament to the nation’s innate connection to the sea. Published in partnership between Historic Environment Scotland and the Northern Lighthouse Board.
From the author of the prize-winning As the Women Lay Dreaming comes a remarkable 'unreliable biography' of Karl Kjerulf Einarsson: an artist and an adventurer, a charlatan and a swindler, forever in search of Atlantis.
April 24, 1923. The SS Metagama is inching out of Stornoway harbor, Scotland. On board are Finlay and Mairead, young and hopeful, destined for Detroit. On the other side of the Atlantic, the effects of the Great Depression are inescapable. Prejudice and division are rife, and though they remain bound by a shared past, their lives soon diverge. In an adopted country that is tense with both opportunity and loss, can Mairead and Finlay keep their promises to one another to look only forward, and resist the constant pull of home? From the author of the prize-winning As the Women Lay Dreaming comes a poignant and deeply evocative novel of the 20th-century emigrant experience in the New World. With lyrical prose and masterful storytelling, Murray paints a vivid portrait of the resilient Hebrideans-in-exile who struggled between holding on and letting go.