Christine De Luca

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Christine de Luca, née Pearson, is one of the foremost contemporary poets in Scotland, and she hails from Shetland. Her work has appeared in journals worldwide and she has read at many literary festivals, both in the UK and abroad. She grew up in Waas (Walls), the daughter of the much-loved headmaster of Happyhansel School, Sandy Pearson, and after studying in Edinburgh, worked in education for many years. She now lives in Edinburgh.

In 1996 she won the Shetland Literary Prize with her first poetry collection 'Voes & Sounds', and again in 1999, with her second, 'Wast Wi Da Valkyries'. A third collection, 'Plain Song', was launched in Shetland and Edinburgh in 2002. It is accompanied by a CD of the poems read by the author. These three collections were published by The Shetland Library.

The pamphlet, Drops in Time's Ocean, published by Hansel Co-operative Press in 2004, is based on eight generations of Christine's family, on her father's side which hails from Vidlin in Lunnasting. The Hansel Cooperative have also produced some of Christine's stories for children on a CD, along with the work of John Cumming, Iris Sandison and Jane Moncrieff.

Her most recent collection, 'Parallel Worlds', was published by Luath Press, Edinburgh in 2005. One of the poems in this collection, Makkin Sooth Eshaness, won the Rhoda Butler Prize for Shetland Dialect, 2004. The Shetland Writing Prize is awarded annually for a particular genre of writing. In 2006 it was awarded for poetry. Christine's poem 'Seein Baith Sides' won the overall prize and also the prize for best poem in Shetland Dialect.

De Luca's work has been translated into Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Icelandic, Finnish, Estonian, Latvian, Polish, Austrian-German, French, Italian, Welsh and even English.

A bi-lingual volume of her poetry was published in 2007: Mondes Paralleles: Poemes des Iles Shetland Edition Bilingue. It is a selection from her first four collections and newer work, translated by Jean-Paul Blot and the author. In 2007, this volume won the prize for poetry at the 9th Salon International du Livre Insulaire in Ouessant.