Celebrating the capital in words and pictures

Edinburgh means different things to many people.

In this book, the product of a collaboration between photographer Allan Wright and poet Gerda Stevenson, the interaction of their dual perspectives on the capital makes for a different take on the traditional Edinburgh coffee table book.

Eighty-seven photographs are accompanied by 22 new poems, some in Scots, which present the capital in all her guises – ancient and modern, local and international, privileged and disenfranchised.

A particularly poignant image of a homeless man on the Royal Mile ensures that the city’s darker underbelly of poverty and homelessness is not glossed over in favour of the its more famous views.

Some of the poetry did not grab my attention as much as I hoped it would, but the book’s content nevertheless makes important points about Edinburgh’s identity as Scotland’s capital city in these turbulent times.

Edinburgh, by Allan Wright and Gerda Stevenson, published by Allan Wright, £15.

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