Ravage: An Astonishment of Fire - Paperback

by Macgillivray (Author)

Ravage: An Astonishment of Fire draws together MacGillivray's
extensive research into the life and work of Norwegian-Shetlandic poet
Kristján Norge, who vanished from Eilean a' Bhàis in the Outer Hebrides
in 1961. Comprising two previously unpublished manuscripts by Norge, Optik: A History of Ghost (1950) and Ravage
(1961), this collection also includes rare original material, giving
insight into Norge's troubled existence and mysterious disappearance.

Through a combination of fragments that include poetry, logbook entries and correspondence between historical figures such as Sir David Brewster and Sir Walter Scott, MacGillivray introduces us to the troubled and mysterious character of Kristján Norge. The book ranges from meditations on Greek optics, to accounts of isolation and demonic transformation on a remote island, to various archival materials including maps and photographs that bring the story of Norge to life.

The book includes a QR code which can be used to access extra multimedia material by MacGillivray to further flesh out the world of Kristján Norge.

Author Biography

MacGillivray is the Highland name of writer and artist Kirsten Norrie. Her poetry and multi-disciplinary practice inhabits a rich artistic universe encompassing performance art, song-writing and the use of visual media such as sculpture and photography. She has published three other poetry books, The Last Wolf of Scotland (Red Hen, US, 2013), The Nine of Diamonds: Surroial Mordantless (Bloodaxe Books, 2016) and The Gaelic Garden of the Dead (Bloodaxe Books, 2019). Her non-fiction work, Scottish Lost Boys (as Kirsten Norrie), was published by Stranger Attractor/The MIT Press in 2018. Her other US connections include performing there with many musicians, including Thurston Moore and Arlo Guthrie. She had a fellowship at the Library of Congress which enabled her to spend time with Navajo and Hopi people in Arizona. In one of her performance pieces she walked in a straight line with a dead wolf on her shoulders through the back streets of Vegas into the Nevada desert. The Last Wolf of Scotland told the story of an early Scottish settler who suffered a scalping, and she recorded Sitting Bull's great grandson reading from the book. She is currently working on an anti-Western, An American Book of the Dead, a novel set in New Mexico and the Scottish Highlands. She has taught at the Universities of Oxford, Cheltenham and Gloucester and Edinburgh College of Art. After living for many years in Edinburgh, she is now based in Oxford.