Island

The collected stories by one of the greatest short-story writers in the world.

A lifetime's achievement in more than one sense

Provokingly singular and rare, an island of richness

Beautifully crafted stories: elegiac, honest, proud, and both eloquent and taciturn, like their subjects...a wonderfully talented writer

Rarely does a great writer offer himself to us with an oeuvre so complete

Alistair MacLeod was born in 1936 and raised in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.  He is Professor Emeritus of English Literature at the University of Windsor, Ontario.

These slow, beautiful stories - resolute and resonant - are small masterpieces: apparently simple but actually crafted with enormous skill and precision. Set against the unforgiving landscape of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, they are all concerned with the complexities and mysteries of the human heart, the unbreakable bonds and unbridgeable chasms between man and woman, parent and child. 
 
Steeped in memory and myth and washed in the brine and blood of the long battle with the land and the sea, these stories celebrate a passionate engagement with the natural world and a continuity of the generations in the face of transition, in the face of love and loss. 
 
As John McGahern says in his eloquent foreword: 'the work has a largeness, of feeling, of intellect, of vision, a great openness and generosity, even an old-fashioned courtliness. The stories stand securely outside of fashion while reflecting deep change'. Bringing together all Alistair MacLeod's short fiction, and including two previously uncollected stories, Island represents the great achievement of one of the world's finest storytellers.

Alistair MacLeod

You will find scenes from this majestic novel burned into your mind forever

One of the great undiscovered writers of our time

The novel is close to being a masterpiece. The characters, the light and the weather, the story itself - its beautiful tone and shape, its harsh and melancholy music - stay with you for days afterwards. The novel is simply breathtaking in its emotional range

Exceptional... The book is pervaded by the humour and colour; intensely vivid, and very, very moving

Alistair MacLeod is a wonderfully talented writer

This year No Great Mischief made Alistair MacLeod's position as a master of prose even more firmly assured. This is a work of true lyricism, emotional intelligence and breathtakingly acute observation

Close to being a masterpiece, this intensely poignant 1999 novel stays in the mind for days...Quite simply, a wonderful, wonderful book

In 1779, driven out of his home, Calum MacDonald sets sail from the Scottish Highlands with his extensive family. After a long, terrible journey he settles his family in 'the land of trees', and eventually they become a separate Nova Scotian clan: red-haired and black-eyed, with its own identity, its own history. 
 
It is the 1980s by the time our narrator, Alexander MacDonald, tells the story of his family, a thrilling and passionate story that intersects with history: with Culloden, where the clans died, and with the 1759 battle at Quebec that was won when General Wolfe sent in the fierce Highlanders because it was 'no great mischief if they fall'.

Alistair MacLeod

Praise for No Great Mischief

You will find scenes from this majestic novel burned into your mind forever

One of the great undiscovered writers of our time

The novel is close to being a masterpiece. The characters, the light and the weather, the story itself - its beautiful tone and shape, its harsh and melancholy music - stay with you for days afterwards. The novel is ...

You will find scenes from this majestic novel burned into your mind forever

One of the great undiscovered writers of our time

The novel is close to being a masterpiece. The characters, the light and the weather, the story itself - its beautiful tone and shape, its harsh and melancholy music - stay with you for days afterwards. The novel is ...

You will find scenes from this majestic novel burned into your mind forever

One of the great undiscovered writers of our time

The novel is close to being a masterpiece. The characters, the light and the weather, the story itself - its beautiful tone and shape, its harsh and melancholy music - stay with you for days afterwards. The novel is ...

Books by Alistair MacLeod

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