Indeed, so heavily integrated is his work both in subject matter and method that a brief description runs the risk of making him seem entrapped in a fatally narrow range. Direct contact with his work, however, reveals him as an author of inexhaustible invention, great humanity, and unfailing commitment to the techniques of writing. At the center of his oeuvre are his short stories, of which he has published six major collections.
Brown was born in Stromness, Scotland, on 17 October 1921, the youngest of the six children of John and Mhairi Sheena (née Mackay) Brown. There was only one daughter in the family, and one of the sons died in infancy. John Brown was a tailor who became a postman; he died of a heart attack in 1940. Even though its population is only about two thousand, Stromness is the second largest town in Orkney (after Kirkwall). It is located on the western side of Mainland, the largest of the sixty-five or so islands that make up the Orkney archipelago. The original name for Stromness was Hamnavoe, the one Brown prefers to use in his writings.
