To view prices and purchase online, please login, or register for an account.
Beside the Ocean of Time
(Paperback)
Available Formats
Paperback
Published: 1st November 1995
Paperback
Published: 11th November 2025
Paperback, Reissue
Published: 10th September 2019
Publishing Details
Full Title:
Beside the Ocean of Time
Contributors:
By (Author) George Mackay Brown
By (author) George Mackay-Brown
Publisher:
John Murray Press
Imprint:
John Murray Publishers Ltd
Publication Date:
11th November 2025
UK Publication Date:
14th August 2025
Country:
United Kingdom
Classifications
Readership:
General
Genre:
Fiction/Non-fiction:
Fiction
Main Subject:
Other Subjects:
Travel and holiday
Physical Properties
Physical Format:
Paperback
Number of Pages:
240
Dimensions:
Width 129mm, Height 198mm
Description
WITH A NEW FOREWORD BY AMY LIPTROT
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 1994WINNER OF THE SALTIRE SOCIETY LITERARY AWARD 1994'Intimate, humorous, effortlessly combining the strands of history and folklore, the past and the present, this is a deceptively simple book, like a tale told to a child. But its echoes sound on unforgettably. A whole universe is created from a grain of Orkney sand' IndependentIn this novel set on the fictitious island of Norday in the Orkneys, George Mackay Brown beckons us into the imaginary world of the young Thorfinn Ragnarson, the son of a crofter. In his day-dreams he relives the history of this island people, travelling back in time to join Viking adventurers at the court of the Byzantine Emperor in Constantinople, then accompanying a Falstaffian knight to the battle of Bannockburn.Thorfinn wakes to the twentieth century and a community whose way of life, steeped in legend and tradition, has remained unchanged for centuries. But as the boy grows up - and falls in love with a vivacious and mysterious stranger - the transforming effect of modern civilization brings momentous and irreversible changes to the island. During the Second World War Thorfinn finds himself in a German prisoner-of-war camp, and it is here that he discovers his gifts as a writer.Long afterwards he returns, now a successful novelist, to a deserted and battle-scarred island. Searching for the peace and freedom of mind he had in abundance as a child, he finds instead something he didn't even know he was looking for.George Mackay Brown intertwines myth and reality to create a novel of deceptive simplicity. The story of Thorfinn and the island of Norday is a universal and profound one, rooted in the timeless landscape of the Orkneys, the inspiration of all his writing.Author Bio
George Mackay Brown was one of the greatest Scottish writers of the twentieth century. A prolific poet, admired by such fellow poets as Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney, he was also an accomplished novelist and a master of the short story. He died at the age of 74 on 13 April 1996.
