Colin McIlroy, Curator of Modern Literary Manuscripts, writes: The Library’s most significant modern literary acquisition of 2024 was that of former Makar (Scottish poet laureate), Jackie Kay. One of the most acclaimed and noteworthy figures in contemporary Scottish and UK culture, Kay’s writing explores and interrogates intersecting characteristics of race, sexuality and nationality. Her archive ranges from her school years, to personal notebooks which record daily life, relationships with friends, social events, theatre rehearsals, literary festivals, public events, readings, teaching, travel, her thoughts on art and history, all intermixed with working drafts of published and unpublished writings. Together they offer a detailed and intimate map of Jackie’s life and writings, her personal journey and the development of her distinctive vision and powerful voice.
The collection also includes personal letters, manuscripts of poems, novels, short stories, plays, diaries, press articles, early essays and schoolbooks, university writing, family papers, photographs, audio cassettes, prizes, awards and honours. Such an abundant insight into both her life and writing (which are often inseparable), and the detailed and rich record of her remarkable personal journey identify this as an archive of major significance.
The collection contains the developing ideas and drafts of her best-known and critically acclaimed works. These include The Adoption Papers (1991), Bessie Smith (1997), Trumpet (1998), Why Don't You Stop Talking (2002), Red Dust Road: An Autobiographical Journey (2011), Fiere (2011), and Bantam (2017), among others.
The correspondence includes letters and cards from Diana Athill, Pat Kavanagh, Liz Lochhead, Audre Lorde, Peggy Seeger, Ali Smith, Jeanette Winterson, and others. There are letters to and from her birth mother, her son, letters from her close friend Julia Darling, from her publisher Bloodaxe, fan mail, and more.
Additional material in the archive adds personal context to the literary and biographic materials, with prizes, awards, and honours, and a rich range of photographs of her family, friends, and fellow writers. As such, this significant acquisition offers abundant documentary evidence of how Jackie Kay thinks, writes, creates, and records her life.
The collection will be of significant research value to academics, biographers, cultural historians, along with students, readers and fans of Kay’s work. As a former Makar, prize-winning author, and major literary figure, her work is widely known and will be in demand for exhibition, publication, and outreach activities.
The valuation report highlighted ‘the extraordinary richness of the contents. From her early years Jackie appears to have pen or pencil, paper or notebooks close at hand and to have filled them with her observations, reflections, drafts of verse and prose, sketches and artwork, research notes and queries, details of appointments and meetings’.
This collection is an important addition to the Library’s collections and has enormous potential to reach new and diverse audiences beyond the Library’s existing reader community. We foresee that the addition of this archive will enhance the Library’s ability to further diversify our modern Scottish literary collections.
