Explores the life of one of Scotland's most important poet-thinkers as told by himself
White's own account of his childhood, education, personal life and success as an author in France
Reveals of the intellectual sources and influences of White's theory of 'geopoetics'
Tells the story of his relationship to Marie-Claude White and the various homes they inhabited
Kenneth White achieved fame in his adopted country of France as a poet, essayist and travel writer. His status was confirmed in 1983 by his appointment as Professor of Twentieth-Century Poetics at the Sorbonne in Paris, from which position, in 1989, he founded the International Institute of Geopoetics which helped establish 'geopoetics', that White had first proposed in the 1970s, as a distinct and recognised discipline in the humanities. Between Two Worlds is White's account of how a working-class Scot from Ayrshire became a prominent figure in French cultural and intellectual life, despite having been sacked by the university where he was teaching for his part in the student revolt of 1968.
1. Origins 2. The Rites of Childhood 3. The Ayrshire Scholar 4. The Glasgow Student 5. The Shack at the Edge of the World 6. The Suspension Bridge 7. Midnight Montparnasse 8. Song of the South 9. Moving Times on the Moon 10. The Revolt of '68 and its Aftermath 11. An Eventful Year in the Floating World 12. The Light of the Pyrenees 13. On the Literary Scene 14. Euramerasian Peregrinations 15. Radio Sorbonne Calling 16. Reconnection with Scotland 17. The Atlantic House
Kenneth White was a Scottish poet, academic and writer. He published numerous works of poetry and prose, with volumes and essays in French as well as English. His work has also been translated into several languages.
He was the recipient of many awards and honours, in Europe and Scotland, including the Grand Prix du Rayonnement Français by the Académie française for his work as a whole (1985), the Édouard Glissant prize from the University of Paris VIII for his ‘openness to the cultures of the world’ (2004) and Prix de poésie Alain Bosquet for Les Archives du Littoral, a bilingual poetry collection (2011). White held honorary doctorates from the University of Glasgow, the University of Edinburgh and the Open University and was an honorary member of the Royal Scottish Academy.
In 1989 he founded the International Institute of Geopoetics to promote further research into the cross-cultural, trans-disciplinary field of study which he had been developing during the previous decade. It has since produced six Cahiers de Géopoétique (journals) in French, publishing a range of work on geopoetics from throughout the world. Geopoetics Centres have since been set up in Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Serbia, Quebec, New Caledonia and France.
His publications in English include, Ideas of Order at Cape Wrath (2013), The Wanderer and his Charts (2004), Open World: The Collected Poems 1960-2000 (2003) and House of Tides (2000). He lived on the north coast of Brittany.
Cairns Craig is Professor Emeritus in Irish and Scottish Studies at the University of Aberdeen. His most recent books are The Wealth of the Nation: Scotland, Culture, Independence (2018) and Muriel Spark, Existentialism and the Art of Death (2019), both published by Edinburgh University Press. He was the general editor of the four volume History of Scottish Literature published by Aberdeen University Press in 1987, and was involved in editing the magazines Cencrastus and Radical Scotland in the 1980s. Other books on Scottish subjects include The Modern Scottish Novel (1999) and Intending Scotland (2009).
