Looking back

Details: Created: 15 September 2019

Donald S Murray took to the stage in Uig, Isle of Lewis, on Saturday September 14th with a

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Details: Created: 12 September 2019

Donald S Murray says he is “delighted” to hear that he has just received a travel award from

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Details: Created: 10 September 2019

Words and music which reflect the Iolaire disaster and its aftermath will be performed at a

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Details: Created: 25 August 2019

An event coming up in Uig Community Centre, Lewis based around my novel, ‘As the Women Lay

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Details: Created: 12 August 2019

Donald S Murray has got a newly updated page on the Scottish Book Trust website.On Facebook this morning,

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My latest books

Donald S. Murray was raised in the Ness district of the Isle of Lewis. He spent his teenage years at The Nicolson Institute secondary school in Stornoway - in those days, pupils from rural districts stayed in school hostels in the town rather than returning home each night – before studying at the University of Glasgow in the 1980s. After receiving an MA (Joint Hons) in English and Scottish Literature, he went on to gain a Diploma in Education and a Secondary Teaching Qualification.

Since then, Donald has written an ever-growing range of books and published a wide variety of essays, columns, short stories, and poems in the likes of The Herald, The Guardian, and The Island Review. His writing, both of fiction and non-fiction, has received widespread critical acclaim and appeared on shortlists and longlists for numerous literary awards.

His debut novel, As the Women Lay Dreaming, won the Paul Torday Memorial Prize in 2020, and was shortlisted for the The Herald Scottish Culture Awards Outstanding Literature Award and the Authors' Club Best First Novel Award in 2019.

In 2015, Sequamur, Donald’s first full-length Gaelic play, was performed throughout Scotland, including at the Edinburgh Festival, as well as in Belfast, London, and Ypres in Belgium. Described as 'moving, powerful, with a message that resonates today,' it examined the effect of the First World War on the The Nicolson Institute in Stornoway.

As a native Gaelic speaker, Donald’s voice can often be heard on BBC Radio nan Gaidheal, while on BBC Radio Four he has featured on Open Book with Mariella Frostrup. He has appeared on TV, on BBC Four’s Birds Britannia, a series looking at the different birds that live in the UK, and on The Last Seabird Summer, which examined the decline of seabirds in the North Atlantic.

Donald also regularly speaks at book festivals and conferences around the world, and has delivered talks at the University of Reykjavik in Iceland; the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland; the Nordic Centre in Tórshavn, Faroe Islands; the Blasket Centre in Dingle, Ireland; and the Pisa International Book Festival in Italy, among others. In 2020, he was elected as a committee member of the Society of Authors in Scotland, which protects the rights and interest of authors.

After 30 years as an English teacher, Donald became a full-time writer in 2012. He now lives and works in Shetland.

(Updated July 27, 2021)

Music, words and memories

Travel award for Donald

Uig venue for Iolaire memories

Putting music to the words…

Book Trust page for Donald

My latest books