An Leabhar Liath: 500 Years of Gaelic Love and Transgressive Verse

A bilingual Gaelic-English anthology of Scottish Gaelic poetry spanning 500 years from the early modern period to the twenty-first century: all anthologised pieces translated by the authors/editors Peter Mackay and Iain S MacPherson with two discreet introductions, one in Gaelic (MacPherson) and one in English (Mackay).

This collection, covering 500 years of transgressive Gaelic poetry with new English translations, breaks the mould for anthologies of Gaelic verse. It offers poems that are erotic, rude, seditious and transgressive; that deal with love, sex, the body, politics and violent passion; and that are by turns humorous, disturbing, shocking and enlightening. In scholarly introductions in Gaelic and English the editors give contexts for the creation, transmission and value of these poems, as historical documents, as joyous – or tragic – works of art, as products of a culture and counter-cultures that have survived centuries of neglect, suppression or threats of being ‘burned by the hand of the common executioner’. After reading this book, you won’t think of Gaelic culture in quite the same way ever again.