Moira Burgess – författare

This groundbreaking book, an important contribution to Naomi Mitchison criticism,examines three novels,The Bull Calves (1947), The Big House (1950) and Lobsters on the Agenda (1952),and a selection of short stories, with particular regard to the supernatural, fairy-tale and mythical content which is a recurrent element in her work. Naomi Mitchison (1897-1999) was a highly practical person -- a social and political activist, a feminist and a pacifist -- yet was drawn to the idea of an 'irrational' dimension to life, and reported inexplicable experiences from her childhood onwards. An awareness of the supernatural and mythical pervades her writing. This book shows that Mitchison perceived a strong connection between 'the irrational' and questions of creativity, sex and fertility, which she saw as being themselves interconnected and central to her life. Moira Burgess is a professional writer in the genres of fiction, drama and poetry, and has published widely on Scottish literature and women's writing. Dr Burgess is the author of The Glasgow Novel: A bibliography.Her novels The Day Before Tomorrow and A Rumour of Strangers are shortly to be reprinted by Kennedy & Boyd, and she is working on an edition of Naomi Mitchison's collected prose. Like Mitchison, she comes from Kintyre.

The south side isn't just a location, a neighbourhood, an area on a city map. In these brilliantly perceptive novellas, all set in Glasgow, it stands for the flip-side of the psyche, the darkness behind the facade. The title story, The South Side, with its echoes of the Bible John murders, finds Matthew, newly widowed and remarried, glimpsing and trying to deny events from his past which he has repressed for years. Machinery deals compassionately with an elderly woman whom others might describe as a neighbour from hell. The magical realism of Below takes Belle, a feisty bag-lady, on a phantasmagorical trip through present and past in search of a lost village under the city, or perhaps in search of herself. (Belle is a recurrent character in Moira Burgess's writing, and her companion Pat Brady features in the novel The Day Before Tomorrow, recently republished by Kennedy & Boyd.) After you read these novellas, neither the streets of Glasgow nor the people in them will ever look quite the same again. Moira Burgess is a novelist, short story writer and literary historian, born in Campbeltown, Argyll, and now living in Glasgow.Writing has been the most important part of her life since childhood and she has published two novels, The Day Before Tomorrow (1971, reprinted 2009) and Speak, Adam (published in 1987 as A Rumour of Strangers, reprinted 2009). For some years she worked mainly on non-fiction, publishing The Glasgow Novel: a bibliography (3rd edition 1999) and a book on the same topic, Imagine a City (1998). Author of Mitchison's Ghosts, a study of the supernatural and mythical elements in the work of Naomi Mitchison, she is now working on an edition of Mitchison's collected prose.

Speak, Adam, formerly published as A Rumour of Strangers in 1987, is the second novel by the literary historian, Moira Burgess. Returning to her former home area of Argyll, Speak, Adam is set in the gossiping town of 'Finavay' where little escapes the notice of the local tongues. The arrival then of highly-strung Christa Beresford and her husband Billy, who are attempting to open their new home as a bed-and-breakfast establishment, is grist to the mill for the prying and judging nature of Finavay folk. Christa's intent to blend into the local area is conditioned by her childhood memories of Finavay and, having recently suffered a personal trauma, she looks to inappropriate comforts to make some sense of her present self. These comforts circulate around a group of itinerant travellers - a young child and a lustful young man holding particular fascination for Christa. As the novel develops the imperfect human behaviour patterns of this small town community emerge. These culminate in an illustration of what happens when the desires of the physical body take precedence over the intelligent.Speak, Adam is then an explicit anti-Kailyard portrayal of a West Highland village which assertively refuses the lure of sentiment and romanticism but nonetheless is still capable of a measure of grace. Moira Burgess is a novelist, short story writer and literary historian, born in Campbeltown, Argyll, and now living in Glasgow. Writing has been the most important part of her life since childhood and she has published two novels, The Day Before Tomorrow (1971, reprinted 2009) and Speak, Adam. For some years she worked mainly on non-fiction, publishing The Glasgow Novel: a bibliography (3rd edition 1999) and a book on the same topic, Imagine a City (1998). Author of Mitchison's Ghosts, a study of the supernatural and mythical elements in the work of Naomi Mitchison, she is now working on an edition of Mitchison's collected prose.

n the fast disappearing slums of the Claggans district of a big Scottish city, only a few tenements still stand. In this strange half-world a small group of men and women live out one hot summer week of their lives. Experience is heightened by the presence of a maniac among them-a man whom some of them at least must know, a sex killer who already has his eye on his next victim and is planning to strike again. But this is in no way a whodunit. It is a warm and human story of the loves, fears and hopes of simple people: of Mrs Sheehan, feeling lost and useless with her family grown up and gone; of old Pat Brady and his sons in the neglected, womanless apartment opposite, tossed in cross-currents of pity, love and hate; of Eugene Carty, tied to a tyrannical invalid mother, whose problems have an unexpected end; of young Bernadette Sheehan, whose return home after eighteen months working in London, dramatically changes the course of several lives. Moira Burgess has drawn on her own experience while working as a librarian in Glasgow to create the lives and background of her characters, and her natural powers as a storyteller to weave these into a convincing whole.Moira Burgess is a novelist, short story writer and literary historian, born in Campbeltown, Argyll, and now living in Glasgow. Writing has been the most important part of her life since childhood and she has published two novels, The Day Before Tomorrow (first published in 1971) and Speak, Adam published as A Rumour of Strangers in 1987 and reprinted in 2009. For some years she worked mainly on non-fiction, publishing The Glasgow Novel: a bibliography (3rd edition 1999) and a book on the same topic, Imagine a City (1998). Author of Mitchison's Ghosts, a study of the supernatural and mythical elements in the work of Naomi Mitchison, she is now working on an edition of Mitchison's collected prose. Douglas Gifford is Professor Emeritus of Scottish Literature at the University of Glasgow.