The People of the Sea

by David Thomson

ISBN: 9781841951072
Imprint: Canongate Classics
Publication Date: Jun 2008
Format: Paperback
Price: £6.99
Stock Status: not in stock

David Thomson’s travels in the Gaelic world of the Hebrides and the west coast of Ireland brought him into contact with a people whose association with the sea and its fertile lore runs deep. They told of men rescued by seals in stormy seas, of babies suckled by seal-mothers, and of men who took seal-women for wives – stories centuries old, handed down to them by their forefathers. These mysterious and fascinating legends retain their spellbinding enchantment through the luminous quality of Thomson’s prose. In the Selkie legends he found the perfect expression of a Celtic world where fiction and truth intertwine, and his book is a window onto that vanished world.

David Thomson (1914-1988) was born in India of Scottish parents. After returning to Britain, he sustained an eye injury when aged eleven. This made school impossible for him until the age of fourteen and impaired his vision for the rest of his life. He was sent to stay with his grandmother in Nairn, and taught by private tutors. During and after university, Thomson took tutoring jobs, staying with one family in Ireland for almost ten years. These Scottish and Irish experiences were explicitly translated into his writing, most particularly in Nairn in Darkness and Light (1987), and Woodbrook (1974). From 1943 Thomson spent twenty-six years working for the BBC as a writer and producer of radio documentaries, writing many distinguished programmes. His love of the natural world, rural communities and oral traditions came together in the unforgettable style of The People of the Sea, his first book. He met his wife in 1952, whilst working for UNESCO, and continued to write fiction, children’s fiction and non-fiction until his death.

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