Donald and his seven cows

ANGUS PETER CAMPBELL is an award-winning novelist, poet, journalist, broadcaster and actor. He was born and brought up on the islands of South Uist and Seil. He attended Oban High School where his English teacher was Iain Crichton Smith, then graduated with Honours in History and Politics from the University of Edinburgh. His novel, Memory and Straw, won the Saltire Society Fiction Book of the Year 2017, Electricity was shortlisted as the Saltire Society Fiction Book of the Year 2023, and his second crime novel, Constabal Murdo 2, won the Gaelic Literature Awards Fiction Book of the Year 2022.

A poetic tour-de-force. Reading it is like turning the pages of the land. Relevant and urgent: a literary gem which tells of the real and the true. It will not age. KAPKA KASSABOVAAngus Peter Campbell’s story is certainly a species of fiction, but the elements of history and folklore and cultural memory kept me interested to the end, and, increasingly, the strange atmosphere of the story put me under its spell. ANGUS MARTINThere is something beautifully hypnotic and melodic about Donald’s story, his humility and his unquestioning faith in a world where nothing is as it seems. CATHY MACDONALD, The Stornoway GazetteThis clever, beautiful and important book. ROGER HUTCHINSON, West Highland Free PressA marvel: an astounding piece of writing. DR IAN MacKINNON, Cultural Scholar, Isle of Skye.A modern classic. The Sunday PostA beyond-wonderful book. DR JOHN DEMPSTER, Inverness Courier.A wonderful novel. NICHOLAS COLLOFF, Director, Argidius Foundation, Geneva.An absolutely brilliant read, but also a very illuminating insight into the Gaelic psyche. ROB MACNEACAIL Donald walks his seven cows around the same path each day, and tells us the tale of a lost way of life, of community and memory. The land is alive as the narrator, and a poetic ode to the Gaelic tongue and cultural threads through the story. Visions of colours and natural landscapes transform like seasons over a single day, evoking themes of birth and death, community and isolation. South Uist becomes a land shaped by the past, the people, the sky and the inevitable shadow of the modern era. It is deeply nostalgic and immensely emotive. SCOTTISH FIELD One of the most beautifully written books I’ve ever read, (and one of the two books I’ve ever read that I will re-read). MICHELLE, on Goodreads.