Neil M. Gunn was a novelist, critic and dramatist, regarded as one of the most important Scottish authors of the early twentieth century. Born in Dunbeath, Caithness, in North East Scotland in 1891, he began his career as a customs and excise officer at the Glen Mhor whisky distillery and wrote prolifically throughout his life. In 1937 he won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his novel Highland River. He died in 1973.