Byres Road Book Festival: Graham Cooper

27 September 2025 1:30 pm

Join Graham Cooper as he discusses the real people behind his new historical fiction novel, Am Prionnsa. 

In June 1745, the peaceful folk of Tullynessle hear the news that Prince Charles Edward Stuart has come ashore in Eriskay. The landowner Charles Gordon and the Reverend Walter Syme, a widow with three daughters, need to make a decision. Will they support the Jacobites’ quest to reclaim the British throne?

Graham Cooper grew up in Aberdeenshire. After retiring from his medical career, he began to learn Gaelic at the Aberdeen Gaelic Club. Between 2012 and 2016, he did courses at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig. At the Royal National Mòd in 2017 he won the Donald John MacIver Prize with a short story, and in 2022, his novel, An Ròs a Leigheas, won the ‘The Best Book for Adults’. Graham has three other Gaelic books in print: Dà Shamhradh ann an Raineach (Luath Press, 2019), An Sionnach/The Fox (Bruadar Press, 2024) and Am Prionnsa (Luath Press, 2025), a historical novel about the Jacobite Rising of 1745.