Deep Wheel Orcadia is a magical first: a science-fiction verse novel written in the Orcadian dialect, as well as the first full-length work of adult fiction in the Orkney language for over fifty years. The inhabitants of Deep Wheel Orcadia - a huge space station with a suspiciously large amount in common with contemporary Orkney - is host to a rich and varied cast, who weave a compelling, lyric and effortlessly readable story around themes of place and belonging, work and economy, generation and gender politics, love and desire - all with the lightness of touch, fluency and musicality one might expect of one the most naturally talented poets to have emerged from Scotland in recent years. The book also comes with a parallel translation into startlingly playful and vivid English, so the reader will miss no nuance of the original. Harry Josephine Giles hails from Orkney, and is already widely known as a fine poet and spellbindingly original performer of their own work; Deep Wheel Orcadia strikes out into new and uncharted space.

Author Biography

Harry Josephine Giles is a writer and performer from Orkney, living in Edinburgh. Their collection Tonguit was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, and The Games for the Edwin Morgan Poetry Award and Saltire Prize for Best Collection. They have a strong spoken word scene presence - they were the 2009 BBC Scotland slam champion, and their theatre has also toured globally, including Forest Fringe (UK), NTI (Latvia), Verb Festival (Aotearoa) and Teszt (Romania).