Christine De Luca


Christine De Luca is a Scottish poet and writer from Shetland, who writes in both English and Shetland dialect. From 2014 to 2017, she was Edinburgh Makar. Several of her collections have won awards or have been short-listed for awards.  She is widely translated and has been involved in numerous translation activities. She is also an active collaborator with musicians and visual artists; and has been one of the Shore Poets for over 30 years, a group of poets who organise monthly poetry/music events in Edinburgh.
WWW Official Site

Early life and education

De Luca was born Christine Pearson in Walls, Shetland. Her father, Sandy Pearson, was the headmaster of Happyhansel Junior Secondary School in Shetland. De Luca moved to Edinburgh in her late teens to study at University of Edinburgh. After graduation, she taught high school for several years and later obtained a master's degree in Educational Research in 1980.

Writing career

De Luca's first three poetry collections were published by the Shetland Library. Her first collection, Voes and Sounds was published in 1994 and her second work, Wast Wi Da Valkyries, was published in 1997. Both collections won the Shetland Literary Prize. A third collection, 'Plain Song', was published in Shetland and Edinburgh in 2002.
In 2004, De Luca's pamphlet, Drops in Time's Ocean, was published by Hansel Co-operative Press. It is based on eight generations of De Luca's family's history. Her poetry collection, Parallel Worlds was published in 2005. A bi-lingual volume of Du Luca's poetry was published in 2007 by éditions fédérop; Parallel Worlds, Poems Translated from English and Shetlandic, include De Luca's first four volumes of poetry and recent work, and was translated by Jean-Paul Blot and De Luca. Mondes Parallèles, published was awarded the Poetry Prize at the Salon International du Livre Insulaire in Brittany in 2007.  
In 2007, the collection won the poetry prize at the 9th Salon International du Livre Insulaire in Ouessant.
De Luca's sixth poetry collection, North End of Eden was published by Luath Press in 2010. In 2011, De Luca's novel, And Then Forever, was published by the Shetland Times. Her pamphlet, Dat Trickster Sun,, was short-listed for the Michael Marks Awards for Poetry Pamphlets award in 2014. This was translated into Italian by Francesca Romana Paci in 2015 and published by Trauben, Torino.
De Luca was appointed Edinburgh's Makar in 2014. She served as poet laureate from 2014 to 2017. Her poems have been chosen four times, by the Scottish Poetry Library for its annual 20 Best Scottish Poems list.
De Luca's work has been translated into several languages, including French, Italian, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Icelandic, Finnish, Estonian, Latvian, Polish, and Welsh.

[Northern Isles] advocacy

De Luca is an advocate for the Shetland dialect, travelling internationally to share her native dialect with similar linguistic cultures, like Scandinavia and Iceland. De Luca is a co-founder of Hansel Co-operative Press, a non-profit cooperative, which promotes literary and artistic work in Shetland and Orkney.
De Luca has focused on promoting her native language through work with Shetland children. She has written children's stories in the Shetland dialect. De Luca translated Roald Dahl’s George’s Marvellous Medicine into Shetland dialect as Dodie’s Phenomenal Pheesic. Also published in 2016 by Black and White Publishing are two Julia Donaldson books, translated by De Luca: Da Trow and The Shetland Gruffalo's Bairn,.

Theatre

De Luca read the role of Elspa, Symon's wife, in The Merchants o Renoun presentation of Allan Ramsay's The Gentle Shepherd staged at the Netherbow Theatre, Edinburgh, on Thursday 26th and Saturday 28 November 1998.

Selected publications

Poetry Collections

  • 1997, Wast Wi Da Valkyries, The Shetland Library, poetry collection
  • 1994, Voes and Sounds, The Shetland Library, poetry collection
  • 2002, Plain Song, The Shetland Library, poetry collection
  • 2004, Drop's in Time's Ocean, Hansel Cooperative Press, pamphlet
  • 2005, Parallel Worlds, Luath Press, poetry collection
  • 2010, North End of Eden, Luath Press, poetry collection
  • 2014, Dat Trickster Sun, Mariscat Press, pamphlet
  • 2017, Edinburgh Singing the City, Saltire Society, poetry collection
  • 2021, Veeve, Mariscat Press, poetry collection
  • 2021, The Art of Poetry & Other Poems, Hansel Cooperative Press, Selected poems by Eugénio de Andrade with versions in English and Shetlandic2025, Vod – Abandoned Crofthouses in Shetland, forthcoming from The Shetland Times, Lerwick, Shetland

Collaborations as poet

  • 2013 Havera – The story of an island, Shetland Amenity Trust, Lerwick 
  • 2018 Paolozzi at Large in Edinburgh – Artworks and Creative Responses, Luath Press Ltd, Edinburgh
  • 2022, Another Time, Another Place, The Scottish Gallery, 12 paintings by Victoria Crowe, with 12 poems
  • 2025 Something of the Marvellous – with artist Brigid Collins – forthcoming from Luath Press, Edinburgh

Bilingual volumes of poetry

  • 2007, Mondes Parallèles Translated from English and Shetlandic by Jean-Paul Blot, éditions fédérop, poetry collection
  • 2015, Questo sole furfante, Nuova Trauben, Turin, Italy – translated collection
  • 2017, Glimt av opphav/ Glims o Origin, Ura Forlag, Selected bilingual, Shetlandic with Norwegian versions by Odd Goksøyr
  • 2017, Heimferðir/ Haemfarins, Dimma, Selected bilingual, Shetlandic with Icelandic versions by Aðalsteinn Ásberg Sigurðsson
  • 2020, Northern Alchemy, Patrician Press, Selected bilingual, Shetlandic with English versions
  • 2022, Tutto è Percezione,, Ludo Edizioni, Italy
  • 2024, Whit ails, whit heals – Ce qui afflige, ce qui apaise, Francis Boutle Publishers, London – New & Selected

Fiction

  • 2011, And Then Forever, The Shetland Times, novel
  • 2022, The Trials of Mary Johnsdaughter, Luath Press Ltd, Edinburgh

Children’s storybook

  • 2005, Smootie comes ta Lerrick, Hansel Co-operative Press, Orkney
  • 2010, Smootie an da Toon Hall Clock, Hansel Co-operative Press, Orkney
  • 2021, Grotti-Buckie an Tirli-Wirli, The Shetland Times Ltd, Shetland

Translations of storybooks for children

  • 2008, Dodie’s Phenomenal Pheesic, Hansel Co-operative Press, Orkney
  • 2016, Da Trow, Itchy Coo with Black & White Publishing Ltd, Edinburgh
  • 2016, The Shetland Gruffalo’s Bairn, Itchy Coo with Black & White Publishing Ltd, Edinburgh
  • 2022, Da Peerie Prince, Edition Tintenfass, Germany

Awards and recognition