Christine De Luca

About Christine

Christine De Luca (nee Pearson) was born and brought up in Shetland, spending her formative years in Waas (Walls) on the west side of the mainland. She now lives in Edinburgh.

She writes in English and in Shetland dialect which is a blend of Old Scots with much Norse influence. Shetland dialect - or "Shetlandic" - is a lively mother tongue, still vibrant and enjoyed both for its onomatopoeic quality and its classlessness. Her main interest is poetry, but she is also active in promoting work with Shetland children and has written dialect stories for a range of age-groups. In addition to this, her first novel, And then forever was published in 2011. She was appointed Edinburgh's poet laureate (Makar) for a three year period, between 2014 and 2017.

Recognition

In 1996 she won the Shetland Writing Prize with her first poetry collection Voes & Sounds and again in 1999 with Wast Wi Da Valkyries (after which the award was discontinued). A third collection, Plain Song, was published in 2002 and Parallel Worlds followed in 2005. One of the poems in this collection, Makkin Sooth Eshaness, won the Rhoda Bulter Prize for Shetland Dialect, 2004. Christine's poem Seein Baith Sides won the Shetland Writing Prize and also the prize for best poem in Shetland Dialect in 2006.

Dat Trickster Sun - published by Mariscat Press in 2014 - was shortlisted for the Michael Marks Award for Poetry Pamphlets. Christine's work has also featured in many anthologies and her poems have been selected for the Scottish Poetry Library's Best Scottish Poems four times in recent years.

Her poems also feature in The Poetry Archive.

International Recognition

De Luca's poetry has been translated into several other languages, including a bilingual Selected, Mondes Parallèles, (éditions fédérop, 2007) which won the poetry Prix du Livre Insulaire. Trauben published an Italian Dat Trickster Sun as Questo sole furfante in Italian, 2015. Two further bi-lingual Selected editions came out in 2017: an Icelandic Selected, Heimferðir - Haemfarins (published by Dimma, Reykjavik); and a Norwegian Selected, Glimt av opphav - Glims o origin (published by Ura Forlag).

Some of her poems have been translated into Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Icelandic, Finnish, Estonian, Latvian, Polish, Austrian-German, French, Italian, Portuguese, Welsh, Bengali, Turkish and even English. She has read her poems at countless events including Book and Poetry Festivals, in: Edinburgh, St Andrews, Inverness, Wigtown, Ullapool, Colonsay, Shetland, Orkney, Nort Uist as well as festivals and events in Norway, Finland, Iceland, France, Italy, Canada, Russia and India. In turn she enjoys translating other poets into Shetlandic.

She has taken part in conferences in Norway and in Italy (University of Rome). Her work is also found in numerous literary journals - both national and international - and anthologies including The Hand That Sees published by The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in association with the Scottish Poetry Library. She has also had many fruitful collaborations with artists.

Other Work

Christine is one of the founders of Hansel Co-operative Press which was established to promote literary and artistic work in Shetland and Orkney.

She has also taken part in several BBC radio programmes; a recording of a conversation between Christine and Rina Katajavuori was broadcast on Radio 4's Woman's Hour. It formed part of the With Love From Me To You series. Christine's poems have also been used in the "Something Understood" series on BBC Radio 4.