One thing is certain about planned Muriel Spark memorial in Edinburgh's Princes Street Gardens...
A planned memorial to writer extraordinaire Muriel Spark will need to be good
The news that a memorial to one of Scotland’s greatest ever writers, Muriel Spark, is to be built in Edinburgh’s Princes Street Gardens is utterly marvellous. Long overdue but, still, simply fantastic and worthy of celebration.
Better yet, she will become the first woman in the park’s 200-year history to be commemorated there. Shockingly, Scotland’s capital still has more statues of animals – and many more of men – than of women. Given her literary genius, it is fitting that Spark will be the first.
Another fine Edinburgh writer, Ian Rankin, said her best known novel, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, “captured the very essence” of the city. “Just as Edinburgh can seem like a Tardis – bigger on the inside than the outside – so Muriel Spark’s slender works contain a vastness of riches,” he said.
“She can be satirical and profound, experimental in style and yet with storytelling skills shaped by tradition. She continues to fascinate, entertain and confound...”
A competition will now be held to design the memorial. One thing is for certain, it simply must be the “crème de la crème”. Nothing less will do.
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