Harry Watson

Harry D. Watson was born in 1946 in Crail, Fife, and grew up in neighbouring Cellardyke in the parish of Kilrenny, the subject of his book Kilrenny and Cellardyke: 800 Years of History (1986). He has also written a literary biography of his distant relative, the Anstruther-born poet and scholar William Tennant, as well as numerous articles on local and family history. A graduate in Scandinavian Studies of University College London, he is an active literary translator from Swedish and has translated biographies of several notable Swedes (Axel Munthe, Raoul Wallenberg) and the Russian poet Mayakovsky as well as novels by Magnus Florin – including The Garden, published by Vagabond Voices in 2014. After teaching English and EFL for nine years in Sweden, Germany, England and Scotland, he became an assistant editor of the Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue at Edinburgh University, retiring in 2001 as director and senior editor. He is married with two sons and lives in Edinburgh.