Silver Darlings
Regular price
€18.50
The Silver Darlings is a tale of lives hard won from a cruel sea and crueller landlords. It tells of strong young men and stronger women whose loves, fears and sorrows are set deep in a landscape of raw beauty and bleak reward. The dawning of the Herring Fisheries brought with it the hope of escape from the brutality of the Highland Clearances, and Neil Gunn's story paints a vivid picture of a community fighting against nature and history and refusing to be crushed.
Neil Miller Gunn (1891-1973) was a novelist, critic and dramatist, one of the most influential Scottish writers of the first half of the 20th century. He was born in the village of Dunbeath in the county of Caithness, the northernmost county of mainland Scotland. His father was the captain of a herring boat, and Gunn's preoccupation with the sea and fishermen can be traced directly back to his childhood memories of his father's work. He began his working life as a Customs and Excise Officer, and turned to full time writing after he was awarded the 1937 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Highland River. He continued to write prolifically both as novelist and essayist throughout his life.