George Mackay Brown: 18 books

In this novel set on the fictitious island of Norday in the Orkneys, George Mackay Brown beckons us into the imaginary world of the young Thorfinn Ragnarson, the son of a crofter. In his day-dreams he relives the history of this island people, travelling back in time to join Viking adventurers at...

George Mackay Brown wrote this memoir in the years before his death in 1996, but he did not want it published while he lived. Here we see the author's simple, bardic honesty turned on himself. In particular, he looks at Orkney, where he was born the youngest child in a poor family, and which he rarely left.

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...

This profound and poetic novel has been described as George Mackay Brown's most innovative work. He recounts the tale of the murder of the Earl of Orkney in the 12th century and links it to the story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German theologian imprisoned and executed by the Nazis during World War...

In his fourth novel, George Mackay Brown takes us to an Orkney torn between its Viking past and its Christian future. Set in the early 11th Century, it tells the story of Ranald Sigmundson, who turns his back on a successful life of political intrigues and battles to design a ship to take him on a journey even greater than the first great voyage of his life, the one to Vinland.

A compilation of poetry written by George Mackay Brown over a 30-year period, which represents his favourite work. These poems reflect the richness of the Orkney Island community where he lives - a community permeated with its past and still close to the natural world.

This collection of the poetry of George Mackay Brown centres on the theme of journeys - including an ill-fated 19th century trip ending off the Orkney island of Westray, from which the book takes its title.

The second collection of stories published by George Mackay Brown, this volume includes 12 stories arising from both ancient and modern life on the island of Orkney.

This collection celebrates winter and its festivals, light and darkness. It includes the tales of Lieutenant William Bligh at the port of Hamnavoe, an Edinburgh man rediscovering his roots in Shetland, Baltic-men shipwrecked on the Orkney coast, and Norse warriors setting out for the Holy Land. Through...

In these six stories George Mackay Brown leads us back along the sweep of Orkney's past and beyond even that to the remoteness of fable. He reveals the timelessness of the lived moment and the constants of island life in the harvest of sea and land and the compulsions of voyage and homecoming.

These unknown and sometimes unexpected poems by the Orcadian master have all his characteristic simplicity and power. In these poems readers will find new ideas previously unexplored, but they will also find those qualities that made George Mackay Brown different from anyone else.

The author's beloved Orkney is brought vividly to life in this classic collection, peopled with crofters, fishermen, ferrymen and tinkers. History plays a part too, for Norse and Scottish legend are revived in tales of witch trials, priest hunts and Viking raids, all endowed with the stark beauty of George Mackay Brown's masterful storytelling.

The small Orcadian community of Greevoe has remained unchanged for generations. Now a shady government project, Operation Black Star, threatens to destroy the islander's way of life. George Mackay Brown's first novel describes a week in the life of the islanders as the come to terms with the...

Many of the places, people, legends and seasons that formed Brown's vision and work are presented here, with poems appearing among the prose. Included are memoirs of his parents, friends and passing strangers with legends and stories of the places.