Tormod Caimbeul's Deireadh an Fhoghair (The End of Autumn, 1979): Introducing the Unknown Masterpiece of Modern Gaelic Fiction
Abstract
Tormod "a' Bhocsair" Caimbeul / Norman Campbell (1942-2015), is generally acknowledged as one of the most significant Scottish Gaelic writers of the twentieth century, and as the most innovative and complex novelist the Gaelic Scotland has produced so far. Nonetheless, as relatively little research has been devoted to Gaelic fiction, his oeuvre still awaits due critical response and remains completely untranslated.
Caimbeul's works are characterised by daring, energetic use of language (interlacing highly idiomatic Gaelic with English, according to the common practise in Lewissian Gaelic dialects), wide-ranging references (from Gaelic place-name lore to 1950s radio shows and Flemish art), close relationship to drama and film, and exuberant sense of humour interspersed with poignant sadness and psychological insight. His first novel, Deireadh an Fhoghair (The End of Autumn), was published in 1979.
The almost plotless digressive novel centres around three old people who live in a remote part of the Outer Hebrides. The paper introduced Deireadh an Fhoghair as a milestone in the development of Gaelic fiction and pointed out its connections to the Gaelic literary tradition and its experimental aspects which exhibit the influence of European modernist and postmodernist trends.
The paper was accompanied by my own provisional translations into English.