George Mackay Brown is probably the greatest living Scottish writer. Since 1954 he has had published eleven volumes of poetry, which have met with both critical and popular success. At the age of forty-five Brown delved into the area of prose as well, and since the publication of his first volume of short stories, A Calendar of Love (1967), he has established himself, in the words of critic Alan Bold, as "one of the finest living prose stylists."

Brown was born on 17 October 1921 in Stromness, a small seaport town in the Orkney Islands of Scotland. The Orkneys, an archipelago just off the northernmost tip of Scotland, were formed during the Ice Age; their history dates back to the Stone Age. The town of Stromness, with only one serpentine street and fewer than 2,000 inhabitants, deserves some attention. Brown has seldom left the town since his school days, and he has lived...