Aonghas MacNeacail

Aonghas MacNeacail (born 1942), nickname "Aonghas dubh" or "black Aonghas") is a contemporary writer in the Scottish Gaelic language. Born and brought up in the Isle of Skye, he was registered at birth as Angus Nicolson, but has changed his official name to his native Gaelic. He attended Uig Primary School and Portree High School, and from 1968 the University of Glasgow where he was one of a group of young writers who gathered around Philip Hobsbaum.

Besides drawing on his rich Gaelic traditions, MacNeacail is influenced by wider practice, including the Black Mountain School of the USA, and tends to work in modern idioms. He has held a number of writing fellowships in Scotland, including repeated residences at the Gaelic college of Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, and reads his own work at festivals around the world. He has collaborated with a number of musicians and visual artists, and has written drama.

Aonghas MacNeacail won the Stakis Prize for Scottish Writer of the Year with his third collection, "Oideachadh Ceart" ('A Proper Schooling and other poems'), in 1997. His most recent collection "Laoidh an Donais òig" ('hymn to a young demon') was published by Polygon in 2007. His partner is the actor and writer Gerda Stevenson.

References

* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/alba/foghlam/larachnambard/am_bard/aonghas_macneacail.shtml BBC biography - Làrach nam Bàrd]
* [http://textualities.net/writers/features-h-m/macneacaila01.php Textualities entry]
* [http://www.spl.org.uk/poets_a-z/macneacail.html Scottish poetry library]
* [http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/~aonghasd/cv.html Macneacail's biography and bibliography]