Sun Behind the Castle

Poet, polemical journalist, literary critic and historian. Winner of two SAC book awards. Funding convenor of the Scottish Poetry Library (1984) Best known as a historian of the Second World War and the British Empire. Formerly staff tutor in Arts, Open University in Scotland. Now freelance writer.

These poems could not have been written anywhere but Edinburgh. This, the most beautiful, wry, challenging and haunting city in the British isles, with its "classic grey - most delicious of lourdness, an ecstasy of glum" is the true hero/heroine of the pages that follow. These poems have the confidence and lightness of words at home in their own streets. In the modern city, Calder displays his customary sharp, vivid observation and notes of pity, kindness and melancholy you don't find, for instance, in MacDiarmid. This is a lovely book. If only every city in this land had a poet like him, what a richer country it would seem. - ANDREW MARR