Sally Magnusson: What the Clearances Couldn’t Remove

Although she’s best known as a BBC newsreader and her father was a famous Icelander, Sally Magnusson is descended on her mother’s side from victims of the Highland Clearances. That terrible period of Scottish history is at the heart of Magnusson’s new novel, Music in the Dark. Shot through with spirited resilience, it’s a tender, clear-eyed reckoning with Scotland’s past. In conversation with Graeme Macrae Burnet. 

Categories: Fiction, Scottish Fiction, Scottish Interest

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Another Scotland

When a nation’s stories crystallise into myth, it’s not always easy to retell them in new ways. Yet, that’s exactly what a generation of Scottish writers are doing: examining, unpacking, and redrafting foundational Scottish tales through a modern lens. In this year’s Festival, leading authors revisit familiar histories and tease out new ways to understand them…