Growing up in Orkney, I rarely saw my island life reflected in the books I read. From the gothic representation of a barren rock, deprived of comfort and civilisation in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to a romanticised haven that serves to heal and nourish the soul in Amy Liptrot’s The Outrun, Orkney has been portrayed in many ways. However, none have quite captured the complexities of my relationship with Orkney, my home.
Frustrated by the lack of authentic portrayals of Scottish island life, I turned to the work of George Mackay Brown. A native of Orkney, Brown captures both the warmth and the constraints of island communities, celebrating the landscape’s beauty while acknowledging its isolation. In A Time to Keep, he shows how tradition can feel suffocating, yet also how islanders unite in moments of grief, ‘in a gale of lamentation.’ The land, a ‘green opening hand,’ offers sustenance, while the sea is both fierce and soothing, revealing the deep, complex bond between people and place.
Similarly, Somhairle Macgill-Eain, one of the most influential Gaelic poets of the 20th century, explores the deep-rooted connection of communities in the Western Isles to their native land. In his collection of poems, O Choille gu Bearradh (From Wood to Ridge) MacGill-Eain delves into themes of island identity, cultural memory, and linguistic heritage.
At a time when Gaelic culture faced erosion and marginalisation, his poetry became a lyrical act of resistance; preserving the voice of the islanders and reaffirming their bond with the landscape, history, and language which define them. A more contemporary example of literature which has emerged from the Scottish islands is
Iain Banks’ The Wasp Factory. Though often excluded from the canon of island literature, its highly subversive take on the tradition leads to an equally disturbing and darkly hilarious read. While it was far from an accurate representation of living on a Scottish Island, it was refreshing to see the way Banks challenged the romanticisation of island life perpetuated in literature. Far from a haven of purity and escape, the landscape is ‘brooding and dark’, a place of trauma and distorted identity. In this way, Banks still harnesses nature as a thematic link; Nature remains central, but here it amplifies isolation rather than offering solace.
In gauging what I consider to be the best of Scottish island literature, what I’ve come to value most are the works that neither idealise nor vilify island life, but instead reflect its contradictions honestly: its isolation and its intimacy, its hardships and its beauty. In this way, these works do not speak for the islands; they sing with them, allowing those of us who call these places home to hear something of ourselves echoed back.
Image via Ella Gibson for The Student
