Born in the small community of Whithorn in Galloway, Alastair Reid (1926-2014) became one of the most international figures in post-war Scottish literature. A staff writer on The New Yorker for many years, he was widely admired as an essayist and as a translator of Latin American writers, including Neruda and Borges. He also spent time in Mallorca working with Robert Graves in the 1950’s.
During his lifetime he published over forty books of poetry and prose – including translations, essays, travel writing and children’s books. However Barefoot is the first ever collected poems and contains previously unpublished verses from the poet’s youth.
Born in Edinburgh in 1950, the editor, Tom Pow knew Reid well. His perceptive introduction to Barefoot will surely become central to future readers’ appreciation of Reid’s poetry. Primarily a poet, several of Pow’s collections have won awards and three of his poetry books have been shortlisted for Scottish Book of the Year. Among his recent publications are In The Becoming – New and Selected Poems (2009), In Another World – Among Europe’s Dying Villages (2012) and a selected poems, Los Recolectores de Nueces, translated by Jorge Fondebrider (2015).
Author
ALASTAIR REID (1926-2014) was born in the small community of Whithorn in Galloway and became one of the most international figures in post-war Scottish literature.
A staff writer on The New Yorker for many years, he was widely admired as an essayist and as a translator of Latin American writers, including Neruda and Borges. He also spent time in Mallorca working with Robert Graves in the 1950’s.