Da Happie Laand

Shortlisted for the 2010 Saltire Society Scottish Book of the Year Award and for the fiction category for the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Book Awards 2011; longlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award 2012

Our Ebooks are powered by Glassboxx
Click here to learn about our Ebooks.

About the Book: 

Hit wis kynda da promised land in mony wyes, da Happie Laand across da sea...

In the summer of the year of the Millennium, a barefoot stranger comes to the door of the manse for help. But three days later he disappears without trace, leaving a bundle of papers behind.

Da Happie Laand weaves the old minister's attempt to make sense of the mysteries left behind by his 'lost sheep' with an older story relating the fate of a Zetlandic community across the centuries - the tales of those people who emigrated to New Zetland in the South Pacific to build a new life in the promised land, and those who stayed behind.

Reviews: 

A work of complexity, a novel to be savoured and one that will only get better with age. NEW SHETLANDER

Jamieson achieves something quite extraordinary [he] combines a compelling modern mystery with 500 years of history in a typically experimental style that leaves many of his contemporaries lagging THE LIST

Robert Alan Jamieson's strange masterpiece Da Happie Laand haunts dreams and waking hours, as it takes my adopted home of Shetland, twisting it and the archipelago's history into the most disturbing, amazing slyly funny shapes. THE SUNDAY HERALD

About the Author:

ROBERT ALAN JAMIESON was born in 1958 into the crofting community of Sandness on Shetland. Since graduating from the University of Edinburgh he has held the William Soutar Fellowship, co-edited the Edinburgh Review and tutored creative writing at Glasgow and Strathclyde Universities. His work appears in many anthologies, he has published a poetry collection (Shoormal) and three novels (Soor Hearts, Thin Wealth and A Day at the Office). In 2005 A Day at the Office was featured in The List's '100 Best Scottish Books of All Time'. He is currently teaching a Creative Writing course at Edinburgh University.