Donald S Murray
Writer and poet Donald S Murray is an Honorary Fellow of the Association for Scottish Literature who has won the Society of Authorsโ Paul Torday Memorial Prize (2012, for As the Women Lay Dreaming,) and the Callum Macdonald Memorial Award (2021), among many awards for his historical fiction, creative non-fiction and poems. His critically acclaimed books bring to life the culture and nature of the Scottish islands, and he appears regularly on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio Scotland and as a live performer.
The Man Who Talks To Birds
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Donald S Murray is widely commended for his empathy and ability to convey emotion with restraint and poignancy. In this short collection of poems written during lockdown at his Shetland home, Murray explores the changing realities of the island and how he, in turn, has been changed.
On his daily walks through the village, Murray finds himself noting shifts in the wind and weather, the imperceptible widening of the sea, and the way time has slowed โ recognising, too, the patterns of flight and migration around Shetland.
With beautiful imagery and lyricism, The Man Who Talks to Birds taps into a deep connection with nature, and its ability to ground us โ something many of us have rediscovered during our troubled recent times.
