SEAMUS Heaney, one of the world's finest writers and already famed for turning the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf into a bestseller, has now turned his acclaimed translating skills to one of the key works of Gaelic poetry.
Heaney, who won the Nobel prize for literature in 1995, will read his new English translation of Hallaig by Sorley MacLean at a major event for this year's Edinburgh International Book Festival.
The fresh translation of the poem - a moving complex rumination on time, loss, memory, and the effects of the Highland Clearances - will stand in contrast to MacLean's own English translation of the work.
Heaney, making his first visit to the festival, will perform his new work on August 15, at a reading entitled The Trance and the Translation.
The Irish writer, who won the Whitbread prize for poetry for his translation of Beowulf, has altered a number of the words in his version of the poem, a move that should prove intriguing to followers of the Gaelic poet's work.
Heaney, who currently teaches at Harvard University, was approached to translate the work from Gaelic into English by Alasdair Macrae, a senior lecturer at Stirling University and a trustee of the Sorley MacLean Trust.
Mr Macrae, a friend of both Heaney and MacLean, said Scotland will be ''delighted'' by the meeting of two of Scotland and Ireland's greatest literary minds.
Although he admitted MacLean, who died in 1996, was ''possessive'' of his own English translations of his work, he said he would have welcomed Heaney's efforts.
Heaney would often go to hear MacLean read his poetry when he was in Ireland.
Last night, Mr Macrae said: ''I think Sorley had a great admiration for Seamus, and Seamus had been in favour of Sorley getting the Nobel prize - he felt Sorley deserved it more than he did.
''Sorley was possessive about his translations, he did not welcome them, because he always felt that they involved local and specialised knowledge.
''Perhaps of all the people in the world, Seamus is the right man, he has an awareness of the world that Sorley MacLean was writing about.''
Heaney has not hidden his regard for the ground breaking Gaelic poet. In a documentary film made about Hallaig in 1984 by Timothy Neat, Heaney said: ''In Hallaig, MacLean, as a Gael, stands in the centre of his world - and, consciously, near the end of his world.''
Hallaig's evocation of the heartbreak and desolation of the clearances is considered to be powerfully and deeply moving, and is ranked amongst his greatest work. It is famous for its opening line, ''Time, the deer, is in the wood of Hallaig''.
The festival is delighted by the literary coup, which will be officially announced today at the launch of the event.
