Booker winner rates Donald's Iolaire novel

Details: Created: 13 August 2026

Front ocver of Donald S Murray's Iolaire novel As the Women Lay Dreaming — One of Douglas Stewart's top four books by Scottish authors.

Booker Prize winner Douglas Stuart has revealed Donald S Murray's As the Women Lay Dreaming as one of his favourite books by a Scottish author.

In a Waterstones video, the John of John author says: "It is a fictional novel treatment of a very real event in Scottish history, which was the sinking of the Iolaire ship in 1919 as the men were returning from war and the devastating effect that had on the Hebrides."

The other Scottish authors that are personal favourites of Douglas Stuart are Agnes Owens, whose collected works were reissued in May, and Alexander Trocchi's 1954 book Young Adam.

Says Donald: "My thanks to Douglas Stuart for his complimentary remarks about my novel 'As the Women Lay Dreaming'... It's also great to be in such outstanding company. Tapadh leibh, Dùghlas! Really appreciate this!"

As the Women Lay Dreaming
Published by Saraband
November 2018

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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)