Christine De Luca – författare

Written in the beautiful Scots of the Shetland Islands - a blend of Old Scots and Norn - the poems in this title evoke a simple and pure way of life. These are poems with a sense of place, sympathy, commitment to language and the urge to celebrate life itself.

A polar projection changes foo we figure oot wir world. Shetland isna banished tae a box i da Moray Firt or left oot aa tagidder - ta scale up da rest - but centre stage.Christine De Luca's poetry creates a sense of the beauty and spareness of Shetland, the contradictory space and smallness of the island; and a feeling for people living on the far side of Scotland.These poems explore concepts of identity, home and belonging, and of our connection with the land. Drawing inspiration from medicine, history and religious and pagan legends, from modern and ancient sources, De Luca writes with equal fluency in both English and Shetlandic.This book awakens its reader to the beauty of the language and the landscape of the most northern part of Britain; yet there is no sense of isolation. She explores the folktales and values home-grown in Shetland in terms of the wider world, from Russia to Canada.

A cold sweat had spread over Mary as she listened. What she was hearing was sounding ever more like a premonition: adultery was nearly as bad as murder.Shetland, 1773: a land of hand-to-mouth living and tight community ties overshadowed by the ever-watchful eye of the kirk, an institution ‘run by auld men, for auld men’. In this fictionalised retelling of historical events, young Waas lass Mary Johnsdaughter stands accused of having sinned in the eyes of the church after the Batchelor, a ship bursting with emigrants seeking new lives in North Carolina, is left stranded upon Shetland’s shores.Will she survive the humiliation? Will she become an outcast? Will one moment cost her everything?A tale of Shetland folk knit out of Shetlandic voices and real parish records, The Trials of Mary Johnsdaughter pits the bonds of friends and family against the grip of the kirk. Only one thing is clear: then as now, ‘Hit’s no aesy livin in a peerie place.’