PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Winner of the Donald Meek Award 2016 Gaelic love and transgressive verse gathered for the first time ‘An Leabhar Liath /The Light Blue Book: 500 years of Gaelic love and transgressive verse mines what the editors Peter Mackay and lain S Macpherson identify as ‘a long and healthy tradition — or counter- tradition or subculture ~ of bawdry, erotic or love poetry that stretches as far back as the age of Ossian’. Their anthology spans 500 years and includes great Gaelic poets of modern times, such as Alexander MacDonald and Sorley MacLean, whose work is shown to be very much in this tradition This anthology, unique in its breadth and depth, presents 65 poems and songs (and some fragments) from high and low culture, including many from female perspectives. The majority of the poems have specially-written new English translations. The book represents a landmark in the printed record of Gaelic culture The ‘taboo’ nature of some of the material confronted the editors with ‘the risk that we might map our own contemporary mores and taboos back onto material from previous centuries... there are certainly things that are highly offensive to. a modern reader.’ Their approach has been to risk offending the sensibilities of certain readers and to show the poems as they are, warts, stereotypes, violence and all. The strength of their scholarship provides a sense of context and the continuous creative flow down the centuries of erotic writing in Gaelic. Extract from the book: ‘Most of the poems and songs can best be seen as bawdy or erotic: they depict sex (or, in lighter moods, love) with differing degrees of explicitness or rudeness. ifone were to apply the British Board of Film Classification labels to the poems few would actually belong to the 18 category, ond many would safely be PG. Much of the verse works by innuendo rather than explicit detail; and to balance the more risqué material we also include some relatively gentle love poems for the sake of colour and variety.’—from the Introduction by Peter Mackay and lain S Macpherson. NOTES FOR EDITORS Publication date: 16 January 2017 ‘An Leabhar Liath / The Light Blue Book: 500 years of Gaelic Love and transgressive verse edited by Peter Mackay and lain S Macpherson ISBN: 9781910745472 HBK £20.00. Trade Order Hotline: Please call HarperCollins Book Distribution Centre on 0870 787 1730, About the Editors: PETER MACKAY is from Lewis originally, and now lives in Edinburgh. He sa lecturer at the University of St Andrews and isthe author of Gu Ledr /Golore, From Another sland and Sorley MacLean; he has aso co-edited Sui air on tScoghal with Niall (Gallagher and Modern iis and Scottish Poetry with Edna Longley and Fran Brearton, IAN S MACPHERSON was born on the Canaan prairies ina family with Inner Hebridean ancestry. After lecturing at Sabhal MBr Ostaig he has been a lecturer in Scottish and lish Gaelic language and literature at Ulster University. Apart from published prose and poetry (in English, French and Gaelic) he isa film maker whose latest documentary for BBC Alba Taigh Al’ tells the story of empire and multiculturalism from Punjab to the Western ses. [About the Publisher: Established in 1981, Luath Press is a leading independent book publisher based in Edinburgh with over 400 books in print including modern fiction, history, politics, travel guides, poetry and much more. For information, interviews, review copy request, competitions and reader offers please contact Louite Dickie at louise. sikie@luath.co.uk or (0131 225 4326, Luath Press Ltd 543/2 Castlehill, The Royal Mile, Edinburgh EH1 2ND committed to publishing well written books worth reading www.luath.co.uk | @LuathPress on Twitter | Facebook.com/LuathPress