Book Festival Reports

John Cooper Clarke
Drams No drams - He needs them more than I do
Venue Spiegeltent Venue D
Address Charlotte Sq Gardens
Reviewer Carol Francis

Wee waif with big hair and shades, Clarke tells us how he was once described by a critic as having 'the complexion of a compulsive blood donor'. His feathery form wafts about the stage and loads the Poetry Machine Gun, then blasts it liberally around the Spiegeltent, firing out verse like Peter O'Sullivan reading Spike Milligan's 'Hidden Words' as adapted by Eminem. His apparent physical frailty turns out to be merely a subtle disguise for a razor mind and acid tongue as nothing is held sacred yet nobody gets offended. Well, not too much anyway. Aside from the poems - about his doomed first marriage, Tom Jones, and other such everyday subjects - he spouts 'This bloke goes to the doctor' jokes, all of which are funny even if you've heard them before. It's not just what he says, it's how he says it, in that unmistakable cynical, sardonic Manc drawl - and even when he starts sniggering at his own material, that just starts you laughing all the more.

His relationship with language is intuitive, open and unpretentious, as well as highly imaginative. The poetry is a rapid-fire counterbalance to the freestyle surreal philosophical chunterings and 'Knock knock' standup humour, which seem at first to have little form but will reward you with ample substance - a bit like him really. Fantastic!

Edwina Currie
Venue The Spiegeltent, Charlotte Square
Reviewer Andrew MacNeil

In the ornate surroundings of the Spiegeltent Peter Gutteridge introduced Edwina Currie to an eager, if somewhat, greying audience.

The intent-broadly was to promote the new novel, "Chasing Men" and the issue of "The Ambassador" in paperback. The delineation of her exit from government, then Westminster, neonate writing career and failing marriage were explored with gusto. In a very accessible way she described the path or plight of women of a certain age whose marriages had failed. The novel was her first "light" novel that explored this fully-and in an entertaining manner. The first book, "A Parliamentary Affair", had focused on life-and sex. It had been about, and powered by her life (and rage) with parliament's misogynist ethos. Gently probed with questions on her writing style and motivations she revealed the web site devoted to her readers' reactions on Hetty, the new main character. This applied to the dilemma faced at the end of the book. Asked why Tories were good at fiction she confessed we were good at Porkies.

A work in progress, not seen by "libel lawyers" resembled some recent dalliances in the present government. This delighted the audience who warmed to the energy of the readings. Questions even contained one referring to her fitness for the Speaker's job. A welcome addition to the macroverse of word and rhyme at the Book Festival.

Helen Douglas and Alec Finlay on the Art of the Artist Book
Venue The Studio Theatre
Address Charlotte Square
Reviewer Colin Donati

This was the first event I attended at this year's Book Festival, and it made for a very pleasant hour. Like all the venues on the Charlotte Square site, the Studio Theatre is a large tent. At first one wonders whether the acoustic could possibly be right in a tent for quiet, spoken word events. But it works - just. All the speakers mike up and somehow the intimate tone of the spoken voice carries right to the back of the tent. It is a unique atmosphere. All the time one hears the distant continuo of traffic round the 'island' of the gardens, or a ripple of applause from another tent. A shower of rain on canvas. Yet everything remains peaceful, airy and dry.

Helen Douglas and Alec Finlay spoke of their experience as small publishers of unique and individualised artist books with small print runs. Finlay opened with the simple question 'what is a book?' - the kind of question often taken for granted, but not necessarily as obvious as might be first thought. Both managed to convey their love of the book as an object in its own right, and their fascination for the different possibilities that could be realised in its form. Shape, size, paper quality; the way text and pictures could be placed on the page - everything about the feel and spirit of books was up for exploration.

As they spoke they passed examples around for us to touch, feel, leaf through and appraise. Some were tiny. Some were concertina in form. Some had only one word per page. Some had rubber stamps running through them. One consisted of the sonically transcribed songs of birds. All were intriguing, beautiful and unique.

Marilyn Dumont, Armand Garnet Ruffo and Eden Robinson
VenueThe Studio Theatre, Charlotte Square Gardens
Reviewer Colin Donati

Three visiting Canadian writers, all with native 'aboriginal' blood in them, read extracts from some of their writing and discussed questions of heritage and identity in their society. They spoke from experience. There was much resonance with issues of the language question covered in other events I have attended, very welcome and interesting. Marilyn Dumont lamented that the Cree language of her parents was beaten out of her as a child through Canadian state education. She made no bones that the 'extirpation' of the language was a deliberate act, against a cultural context which set terms such as 'dumb heathen' against 'Kings English' creating thereby a division between, in her words, 'non-people' against 'people'. Cree language was denigrated as being the 'language of the devil'.

I was irresistibly reminded of comments by Alasdair Gray at his event the previous hour, where he reflected on the apparent absence of literature in England for about three centuries after the Norman invasion and explained this as evidence showing what might happen when a vigorous language is stamped out and a new one has to be invented to need to reconnect again with the invading rulers. I wondered about possible connections. The parallels of course are not exact, but here we have three excellent and vigorous writers assimilated into the 'invaders' culture writing literature in the dominant new language three or four centuries after the invasions - so clearly issues of language change and extinction are still relevant. Tomorrow's 'Obituary of Languages' event promises to explore this question further.

[Both the 'Alasdair Gray' and 'Obituary of Languages' events are reported on this site.]

Young Adult Writer as Readers: Helen Dunmore
Venue The Napiers Herbalists Lifestyle Tent
Reviewer Andrew McNeil

Due to illness-not serious Joan Lingard was unable to be "in conversation" with the exquisite Helen Dunmore. Her children's' prose and adults fiction, for which she has won the Orange Prize, has a depth and zest to it that reveals her love of Russian literature. Reading from her new work Zillah & Me she outlined the tragic but new beginnings occurring to the young protagonist. The avid young adults present loved the reasoning behind the demands and motivations of her own life and how it fed into her work. Perhaps constant moving around and university at seventeen had sensitised her to the world. Joan Lingard was there: given polished voice by Lindsey Fraser from Scottish Book Trust.

The new novel "Natasha's Will" set both in Revolutionary St Petersburg/Russia and present day Scotland displayed how children often hold families and circumstance together; an organic thread in both writers' work. Lindsey read from the two time periods. Questions on reading-don't force it, was one comment also highlighted the real importance of sharing books by teachers and parents. Time being the gold standard in both cases. I should know I occupy both categories. All, in all a delightful session.

Andrea Dworkin
Venue The Post Office Theatre, Charlotte Square
Reviewer Colin Donati

If Andrea Dworkin were a poet I would feel a little easier about her ideas. There is no doubt that her writing is powerful and contains much that is emotive and heart-felt. She is clearly harrowed by the world and has a mission to make it clear to women and men alike that the battle for equality is not won. It is not even equality she argues for, but a wholesale transfer of power. To a capacity audience she reiterated her call for a woman's state with fully armed woman's army. At the close she addressed the men directly. 'You've had two thousand years. Give us the next two thousand.'

One of the strengths of her vision is the refusal to ignore atrocity. Her latest book, Scapegoat: Jews, Israel and Women's Liberation, includes, amongst many other issues, a profound critique of pornography and prostitution, and a no-holds-barred chapter on the treatment of Jewish women in the death camps as objects for rape. With visible weariness for the ordeal of it, she read passages that were forceful and clear. When she spoke the phrase 'the Nazi horror' the words were reinvested with the full force of their meaning. The attention in the tent was palpable. In one of the silences, as she turned the pages to find another passage, she said, quietly, 'It hurts to read this.' The audience knew she meant it.

But her particular call to arms as a feminist leaves me feeling uneasy. Her valid and important focus on the issues of violence against women sometimes comes close to leaving the impression that the entire situation for women is a story of almost infinite victimhood. Ditching her pacifism, she spoke of having come round to the opinion that this situation was correctable only through return violence. She made an assertion of the right of a mother to shoot a paedophile on the grounds that male law fails both mother and child. Questions from the audience placed this in context with the recent mob rule in places such as Portsmouth. She stood her ground.

Another questioner asked what men who were 'on-side' with feminism could do. She showed that, even having been in the country only a couple of days, still she has been doing her homework on us. Quoting the title of a rape episode of Cracker on the television the night before, she said: 'Men should weep.'

Dying, Dying, Dead: Writing the Obituary of Languages
VenueThe Spiegeltent, Charlotte Square Gardens
Reviewer Colin Donati

David Crystal has a mission. He quite simply wants to raise consciousness about an issue very few of us give much thought to. He believes that the rich family of world languages is in mortal danger. The marvellous diversity of tongues that has usually existed on this planet now looks like becoming subsumed by a few large powerful 'steam-roller' languages such as Chinese, English, Arabic, Spanish, Hindi, Russian and so on. He believes a point of crisis has been reached. To get the message across, he presents what I can only describe as a most careful, most considered and engaging 'performed lecture' supported by his wife Hilary and son Ben. It was presented this afternoon for the Book Festival, in the Speigeltent.

Together the three manage to convey a large number of statistics clearly and concisely, and manage to give them their proper context while allowing us to make up our own minds whether we share the conclusions. The bare facts are that, though there are an estimated 6000 languages in the world, there is every sign that the 20 or 30 most dominant ones stand to wipe out the rest. If this is so, it is something that probably has not occured before in human history. In other words, that 4% of the world population who speak the 96% of its langauges may be in danger of failing to pass their tongues on to the next generation. In each case what is lost is an entire and unique world view. There are already an estimated 1500 languages with fewer than 1000 speakers, and at least 200 with less than 10.

How does language death occur? Why should it matter? Can anything be done about it? The mechanics behind these three questions was made clear in calm and measured fashion. Issues of politics, community, mindset, economics, poetry and biology were each carefully interwoven without straying from the central point. It was an impressive performance that conveyed urgency without sensationalism. The interest for me extended beyond simply questions of conservation. Thoughts about the mystery of where language arises from, what it means for human beings, and what a world might be like if it didn't exist, were inevitably conjured. An analogy between saving a species and saving a tongue was cited by Paul Scott in the chair, and questions from the audience inevitably, and rightly, brought up the positions of Scots and Gaelic.

Alasdair Gray and the Book of Prefaces
Venue The Spiegeltent
Address Charlotte Square Gardens
Reviewer Colin Donati

A chance to meet and hear Alasdair Gray is always immensely welcome and great fun. At the Speigeltent today he came to talk about his (monumental) ‘Book of Prefaces’. A labour of real love and joy. After outlining a little of the vision behind it and what it took to make (in short, fifteen years and many a broken publishers deadline) he had free range to talk on a whole variety of his enthusiasms. He was true to form; his eccentric and erratic genius balanced by the cool, level-headed chairing of AL Kennedy. Her careful listening and sly humour made a perfect complement.

Though frequently tongue-tied, he never frustrates. Once he hits the roll of his theme, a clear eloquence, a fascinating common sense and a completely sane fun and humour tumble through. The book’s centuries-long sweep through time allowed him to range across a wide variety of subjects from King Alfred’s state to Harold Wilson’s, yet always keep a thread. The depth of his engagement with each subject was almost total. Without being elevated or pompous in any way, he has the ability of a natural historian to cut through illusions about time and place and connect with what matters. This clear-sightedness is firmly set in a common sense notion of what makes a good world.

Such an optimistic view of humanity and no-strings-attached, down-to-earth socialist morality is rare today but immensely refreshing to hear. So what! if Britain has failed to stick by its post-war promises or that a lady called Mrs Thatcher tore up the contract - he remains faithful to the socialist ideals of his Glasgow father and a faith in their intrinsic achievability - given a bit of the right kind of will. Without a shred of vanity he told us that though the world is supposed to have changed, HE - HAS NOT. His evident excitement in ideas is so infectious and so unusual (to us, trained as we are to be clones to market and celebrity) that it almost comes as a bit of a shock as well as a breath of fresh air.

And there is no anger in him. I think that is the key. It’s always the humour, the warmth and the vision in what he says that make him eloquent. Eloquent he was. Without even remotely asking for our love, we all loved him. Don’t listen to the Times Literary Supplement. His ‘Book of Prefaces’ may be idiosyncratic, but it will also happen to be one of the great and most memorable reference books of our time.

(See also report on Marilyn Dumont, Armand Garnet Ruffo...)

Diana Hendry: Catch Some Bright Sparks with Harvey Angell
Venue The Lloyds TSB Scotland Children's Theatre.

Diana Hendry is a former winner of the Whitbread Children's Award for "Harvey Angell". She is an author of over thirty books for children. The young readers were treated to a skilled and participatory session involving how to construct a character and a story's context. The extent of the young readers' scope and depth, NOT newly revealed by a certain other book phenomenon was displayed in a warm question and answer session.Yes, she wrote every day and she had once wanted to be a sailor. To finish-plate-spinning! Beat that Michael Rosen. A fine and skilled author.

Doris Lessing
Venue Post Office Theatre
Address Charlotte Square
Reviewer Colin Donati

So far the Book Festival has been a resounding success. If the audiences are anything to go by, the format - though generally simple - has proven itself to be one that works. The allure of meeting an author we have read acts as a big draw. The chance to ask questions is clearly very important for people. Even when that author can sometimes be shy or self-effacing, there is a great constituency to be tapped. In the first week at any event, all the offerings I have been to have enjoyed capacity attendances.

And of course, for Doris Lessing this morning, it was quite rightly no exception. Not that she is shy or self-effacing - far from it. To a packed tent she read passages from her latest novel Ben, In the World , sequel to The Fifth Child , and then was interviewed about the unsettling main character. She said she did not regard Ben as being evil, though she acknowledged many readers had thought this after the first book. They had missed the point.

Though she is never less than urbane, polite and civilised, nevertheless she has an insight that can scratch at the surface of civilised behaviour and expose the beast that lies hidden beneath. Her respectful silences were sometimes as eloquent as what she said. Occasionally looked rather bemused by attempts to read too much into her stories, nevertheless she was always careful to respect the questioner, but quick to deflect any comments she found unhelpful or puzzling about her work. Anything that occurred in her novels occurred, she said, because it was right for the story, not because she needed to make philosophical or political statements.

Not that questions of politics and culture were of indifference to her. When asked for her views about the current situation in Zimbabwe - the country of her birth - she found it hard to know quite how to contain everything she wanted to say on the subject.

No well-meant question was beyond bounds. When one sincere enthusiast marvelled how 'a woman so old as you' could 'still have such a lively imagination,' the groups psychology of slightly embarrassed offence was palpable. Not so for the novelist on the platform. Lessing, quite amused and quite equal to the question, took no offence whatsoever. Rather the questioner - even if it hadn't been altogether fortuitiously expressed - had to be commended, for the remark elicited one or two most interesting insights that might otherwise have been lost.

There is without doubt a solid constituency of readers and writers for whom events like this are of immense significance. I for one.

The Macallan / Scotland on Sunday Short Story Competition Award Ceremony
Venue The Post Office Theatre
Address Charlotte Square Gardens
Reviewer Colin Donati

In the tenth year of this prestigious competition, the award ceremony has been held for the first time at the Book festival. Chris Dolan, one of the previous winners, chairing, commented that the event had probably found its ideal home.

There were six finalists. The agony of waiting for the final announcement of the winner was prolonged by readings of extracts from each of the stories on the short leet and some discussion amongst the panel. They appraised the current health of short story writing in Scotland generally. This year's record number of entries - over 2200 - showed that there was no abatement in the form's popularity in Scotland. Rosemary Goring, literary editor of Scotland on Sunday, has overseen the competition for the last ten years.

She thought a peak in quality of entries had occured in the past two years. This year, overall, there had been perhaps an increase in the numbers of entries trying to seek and write to a formula. Douglas Dunn, on the other hand, reckoned that entries continued to show that Scottish writers were concerned not so much with 'fine writing' as with raw expressions of direct experience. Ali Smith, who has edited the anthology of entries, Shorts, expressed her sense that in any competition there was always an element of chance. She had a great sense of what was under the surface still to rise up.

Which story rose up to the surface this year was finally revealed to be David Strachan's 'Distances'. He wins £6000. Sophie Cook's 'Why you should not put your hand through the Ice' came second.

William McIlvanney
Venue The Post Office Theatre
Reviewer Andrew McNeil

Gavin Wallace, Literature Officer at the S.A.C., introduced the "Big Man" of Scottish letters to an audience obviously thrawn to his storytelling powers. In novels like Docherty and The Big Man as well as the poetry collections (These words: Weddings and After and In Through The Head-to name two) he delineates much of the social and political genes and precursors that make us. Gavin praised Surviving The Shipwreck his collection of journalistic work as seminal on the past decade up to 1991. Reading out to the audience the desire to catch the miraculous good in tiny acts of kindness became concrete. These tiny transactions which we pass on to the living which, when we die, go on being remembered.

Poetry and prose whether humorous or contemplative was both precise and profound. Taxi-driver musing on a crocodile fighting a shark to a stunned passenger or the "ferocious carer"-a mother, "trivia like charms around her life" or the Glesgae/Glasgow meeting (and threatening!) Frankenstein these all spoke of the author's wonderment at life. The urban strife yet platinum resilience of individuals often in the most terrible of circumstances.

The ability to live and in such style "using pure gold as kitchen utensils"-to the writer like coming on the "Saviour in the stable every day." Discussion on the platform touched on the split English narrative and Scots-seen in his novels-and later description of a "possible exaggeration" of that debate/dilemma. It also, as have many author events, emphasised the humanity and closeness to other lives of writers, and readers. A man-who has attended the entirety of the author's past Festival events gently probed a recent bullfighting article. McIlvanney quoted with ease the pivotal passages and elaborated on the wider domain of man over beast-historical or social. Asked about other paths in other lives: managing a pop group was lightly mentioned but more serious was the possible marginalisation of writing-aside wishing The Kiln (the last novel) had earned more silver. A common thought! If we ever have a parliament of writers this man heads it. Much skill, much wisdom-but weil kens his feet o clay!

Norman Mailer-The Scotsman Transatlantic Session
Venue The Post Office Theatre
Reviewer Andrew McNeil

Norman Mailer created a centrifugal force at the Book Festival. When the great writer, great man in another pan-century debate, entered on crutches the sense of occasion and expectation was palpable. We were not disappointed.

Explorations with Brian Morton on his era's beliefs in being able to change the world in early works was vigorously moved on by Mailer. The Naked and The Dead perhaps had prefigured the dissolution of the individual soldier brutalised by war. Discussions had a focus and intelligence as formidable as Melville's whale-an earlier embodiment of the soul (which is essentially referring to "a simple people") of America. The past and future of the American soul was plotted: a psychic wasteland after Kennedy's death and now lost to corporate greed.

The Whitehouse "the greatest maximum security prison in the world". Clinton's failure being not sexual but in enacting his duty to the people. He had moved to the "stillwater dock" along with the Republicans. Key plateaus of dialectic that looked at the last century and the next surrounded the nature of writing, truth and the coming election. Everything you see, read and view is fiction. In delineating this paradigm he suggested historians had twelve "real " facts in hundred to deal with. The fiction writer had four. Writing-any kind could only suggest hypotheses for life. Writers were like athletes watching nuances of performance they could improve on. The list of seminal novels/works like An American Dream and The Executioners Song showed different styles and the drive possessed.

Reeling off names like Piccasso and Hemingway on a personal basis he also looked forward to the election. Gore's running mate is a Jew; "it will reveal the extent of anti-Semitism in the United States." Bush was "more American" in contrast to Gore's wary cerebral train of thought. In defining himself as a Left Conservative he could help the abortion, currently cancerous at the centre of American life. A position that touched on valid but dark corners of both sides arguments. Antipathetic this event was not unlike "heaven and hell" according to Norman Mailer. "True morality" is odds with the uniformity of moral laws. This emerging from discussing his belief in reincarnation and karma. The force of intellect and reason, whatever your stand, demanded respect for this iconic figure. The end-and final brief questions seemed not come. What remained-just the energy of the ideas expressed and the height of the realities scaled and suggested were left to be internally revolved.

Edwin Morgan
Venue The Spiegeltent, Charlotte Square
Reviewer Andrew MacNeil

Edwin Morgan is a vital and living force for all Scottish writers. As he warmly revealed he is a poet of voices. In speaking of love, aging and death he found references for all sexes,ages and occupations. This is why he is the winner of the Queen's Medal for Poetry and the present Poet Laureate for Glasgow. The words and erudition filled and multiplied in the air.

Poems about the diviner in the desert where "Landmarks walk like wraiths in the desert" or about his famous apples where love and aspiration burst forth from every nuance of sound and meaning. Living pomenanders waiting in cool corners...eyes shining. His series of poems linked to jazz pieces composed with Tommy Smith were striking and relished by the audience. The conger eel, wolf and deer along with the midge peopled our thoughts and feelings. From mummy to viking or the "flirty twenties" the languages of the world were touched on with the universal lens of emotion. A great man, a great writer-unmissable.

Poetry Please: Simon Armitage, Helen Dunmore & Kathleen Jamie

Venue The Post Office Theatre
Address Charlotte Square
Reviewer Colin Donati

Chaired by Donny O'Rourke, this panel of three poets were asked to discuss the proposition 'does poetry matter'. Kathleen Jamie opened proceedings by saying she had grown tired of being asked to justify her craft. Assuming that most of the (very sizeable) audience had likely already answered 'yes' to the question (otherwise why would we be here) it was clear that poetry did matter.

Using the question as a springboard nevertheless, the discussion moved quickly on and ranged over many topics. Questions of language, influences and the personal meaning of writing poems were considered. Simon Armitage noted that though writing a poem was something that many thousands of people did and found personally satisfying, there was a difference between doing this for yourself and deciding to write for others. The moment a poet chose to enter the public domain, there was a responsibility to consider the audience. Helen Dunmore was extremely eloquent on the subject of her joy in using language.

All three poets read extracts from their work and answered questions from the audience.

Points North
Venue The Post Office Theatre
Reviewer Andrew McNeil

The importance of this book of short stories-that happens to be by Scottish writers, two of whom Chris Dolan and Gordon Legge have not written for "young adults", was not obviated by a small audience. Scottish Mammoth has collected an eclectic and tinkling collection. The first adjective, and one not lightly given-in the field of sometimes "vapid young adult fiction" is from Anne Johnstone from The Herald. In addition to chairing the readings and discussions that took in whole domains of genre and labelling of boundaries she underlined the gravitas and knowledge of the book's editor-Lindsey Fraser. Lindsey from Scottish Book Trust is much admired-being given a dedication in Joan Lingard's latest Russian/Scottish novel and has the final, fine story in P.N. The authors: Julie Bertagna, Theresa Breslin, Chris Dolan and Gordon Legge all read exerts. That this was "lesser" fiction seemed a million miles way. As Theresa Breslin stated here were words reflecting Scotland's writers as "citizens of the world" and able to realise "the general" while seeing "the particular."

The incoming Festival Director Catherine Lockerbie shared how in Norway it was the norm for adult writers to write for children. As David Hume didnae say, "Funny thing the norm."

Darren Shan: The Vampire's Assistant
Venue The Lloyds TSB Scotland Children's Theatre
Reviewer Andrew McNeil

This man possibly, maybe-or will be packing the theatre in years to come. Film rights have been sold to a Hollywood studio (not a cast iron guarantee of production) and the vista of TWENTY-FOUR novels in total awaits the growing army of readers. Darren O'Shaughnessy writes for adults and used his name for that purpose-he used it, in a shortened version, also for the eponymous hero for his first of the series "Cirque du Freak." A buzz bomb of a personality and presenter the author immediately involved eager youngsters in a re-enactment of the Wolf Man loose among audience members.

The scene features in the above novel and "member" is the operative word. Leaping from chair and platform we were whirled round at acrobatic speed. Going from the genesis of the story-recasting the old in a new light, the author's lifelong love of writing and daily work in Limerick these were all detailed. This after interviewed by another individual plucked from the audience. Boys featured but there was a healthy dollop of girls also present. The ordinary boy in extraordinary circumstances is cunningly subverted and enriched in the c.du freak novel. Readers are intrigued by the loose ends and plot twists (praised by one Harry Potter creator, no less).

Evelyn Smith librarian at the Royal High School shared the word of mouth popularity of Darren Shan. She introduced the author who was making his first trip to Edinburgh. Movie, web site and the third novel, Tunnels of Blood, due out in November things to die-well, become undead for. And I have a copy already….ha…ha..(evil laughter echoes)…

Stevenson: A Life
Venue The Post Office Theatre 23rd of August 2000
Reviewer Ian Gilmour

The body of world-famous Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson should be brought back to Scotland from his resting place on a distant Samoan hillside, an Edinburgh Book Festival audience was told... Award-winning travel writer Gavin Bell said Stevenson's much-quoted poem Requiem - "Under the wide and starry sky, Dig me a grave and let me lie… Home is the sailor, home from sea And the hunter home from the hill" - was popularly perceived as expressing a wish to be buried on the hill above the house in Samoa where he had settled. But the poem was written in San Francisco, years earlier, long before Stevenson had even seen Samoa, Bell said. Despite his wanderings, Scotland was "home".to the Edinburgh born writer.

Stevenson's wish to be buried in Scotland was expressed in a speech he made in Honolulu some months before his death and reiterated in a letter to a close friend written only weeks before he died.. It would not have been possible to bring a body back from the South Seas at the time Stevenson died more than a century ago. But it could be done now. "Napoleon died on the remote island of St. Helena," Bell said. "But the French brought his body back."

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