Marius Kociejowski defies pigeonholing. Born in Canada to immigrant parents (an English mother and a Polish father), he lives in London, where he has been a buyer and seller of antiquarian books. He has written poetry (he won the Cheltenham Prize for his first collection, Coast, published in 1990), essays, travel books and memoir. After two books on Syria — The Street Philosopher and the Holy Fool: A Syrian Journey (Eland) and The Pigeon Wars of Damascus (Biblioasis) — he published The Serpent Coiled in Naples (Haus), which was listed among the best books of 2022 by both The Economist and The New Yorker. His latest work, published last week, is The Quantum of Happiness — Two Scottish Islands: The Isle of Lewis and South Uist (Haus, £25).
It’s a book, his publisher says, “encompassing anthropology, travelogue, philosophy, ornithology and many things besides, and brought together in Kociejowski’s distinctive poetic style”. In summary: “Winding through the mist that shrouds Lewis and South Uist in the Outer Hebrides, Kociejowski illuminates an archipelago, a people and a unique culture, and distils the elements of joy that exist here. Is happiness truly measurable, or does it move at such speed that we don’t notice its passing?”
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