When was Edwin Muir born and where did he grow up?
Edwin Muir was born on the 15th of May 1887 at the farm of Folly in Deerness, Orkney. He grew up on the island of Wyre before his family moved to industrial Glasgow in 1901.
Edwin Muir was born on the 15th of May 1887 at the farm of Folly in Deerness, Orkney. He grew up on the island of Wyre before his family moved to industrial Glasgow in 1901.
Muir married Willa Anderson in 1919 and the couple worked together on many translations issued under their joint names. They produced acclaimed English translations of works by Franz Kafka, Lion Feuchtwanger, Gerhart Hauptmann, Sholem Asch, Heinrich Mann, and Hermann Broch between 1924 and the start of the Second World War.
In 1939 at St Andrews Edwin Muir had a profound religious experience that led him to think of himself as Christian from that point onwards. He saw Christianity as being as revolutionary as socialism and this shift shaped his worldview for the rest of his days.
Edwin Muir published Scott and Scotland in 1936 after moving to St Andrews in 1935 which advanced the claim that Scotland can create a national literature only by writing in English. This opinion placed him in direct opposition to the Lallans movement of Hugh MacDiarmid because he held little sympathy for Scottish nationalism during these years.
Edwin Muir died on the 3rd of January 1959 in Cambridge. He was buried in Swaffham Prior, Cambridgeshire.