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This free talk commemorates the 125^th anniversary of the birth of James Leslie Mitchell/Lewis Grassic Gibbon, whose life and work have been the lifelong passion of William Malcom. Focusing on Gibbon’s unique approach to the literary use of Scots in exploring why the acclaimed author of Sunset Song felt that dialect writing ‘makes me feel vaguely ashamed of myself’, Malcolm aims to reveal the creative ingenuity of Gibbon’s ‘Orra English’ narrative response.

William Malcolm has exercised his passion for the life and work of James Leslie Mitchell/Lewis Grassic Gibbon with the energy of a doomed obsessive, which has yielded two English degrees, four decades of academic research, six books, a slew of articles and media appearances and over thirty years of service as Literary Adviser to the Grassic Gibbon Centre, culminating in the award in 2017 of Honorary Fellowship of the Association for Scottish Literary Studies and appointment in 2018 as joint administrator of the Mitchell Literary Estate. His book, History of a Revoluter, was shortlisted for the 2026 Saltires Award for Research Book of the Year.