Fred Urquhart

A Diver in China Seas

Herausgeber: Affleck, Colin

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

Highly praised by leading critics on its first publication, this collection of some of Fred Urquhart's most subtle and skilful stories depicts the lives of a variety of Scottish characters, at home and abroad. He deals with social class and inter-generational conflict, aspirations and disasters, the passing of time and memories of the past. Urquhart displays his profound understanding of the dreams and behaviour of his predominantly female characters, whether it be an admirer of a great Scottish novelist, trying to discover the truth about her heroine, or a young woman encountering the horror of the Peninsular War; a middle-aged entertainer reminiscing while searching for her reprobate daughter in Paris or a woman fated to wander back and forth across the Atlantic. Comedy and tragedy intermingle in these stories, and throughout Urquhart displays his remarkable ability to make his creations speak in a totally convincing way.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Kennedy & Boyd
• Seitenzahl: 234
• Erscheinungstermin: 10. März 2017
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 203mm x 127mm x 14mm
• Gewicht: 286g
• ISBN-13: 9781849211086
• ISBN-10: 1849211086
• Artikelnr.: 47814372

Autorenporträt

Fred Urquhart (1912-1995) was born in Edinburgh and spent much of his childhood there, where his grandparents lived, and later he worked in an Edinburgh book shop for some years ('my university'). He is best known as a superb short story writer. When he began to write it was the heyday of short story magazines, and this was the only obvious way to earn a living as an author. He spent the war in the north-east of Scotland, a conscientious objector relegated to farm work: his stories of this are agreed to rival Grassic Gibbon and Jessie Kesson. But later he went to London, finding the louche world of Soho more to his taste than Edinburgh correctness. Later he lived in the country in a 'happy homosexual marriage' and he did not return to Scotland until 1991, after his partner's death. The Ferret Was Abraham's Daughter (1949) and Jezebel's Dust (1951) are his two great novels of Edinburgh's poorer citizens in wartime.