Poet and novelist. Born at Ayre in Deerness, Orkney, Muir was the son of a tenant farmer. When he was two, the family moved to the island of Wyre and six years later to Garth. He was educated at the Kirkwall Burgh School. When they lost their farm in 1901, the family was forced to move to Glasgow - a remarkable translocation - but tragically both of his parents and two brothers died within a few years.
Muir published seven volumes of poetry between 1925 and 1956, and three novels; namely The Marionette (1927), The Three Brothers (1931) and Poor Tom (1932). However much of his work was in the form of critical essays. He expressed doubts about Scotland and the Scots language in Scottish Journey (1935) and his controversial Scott and Scotland: the Predicament of the Scottish Writer (1936), which criticised Sir Walter Scott (1771 - 1832), and Scottish literature more generally, as lacking imagination, effectively ending Muir's friendship with the nationalist poet Hugh MacDiarmid (1892 - 1972).
In 1919, he married Willa Anderson (1890 - 1970). She helped him both overcome the sadness of the preceding years but also became the major contributor to the couple's translation work. They lived between the SE of England, Montrose and St. Andrews, while spending time in Czechoslovakia, Germany, Italy, and Austria (1921-24) and France (1926-27). The Muirs translated Franz Kafka into English for the first time and were to translate several other German authors.
Following the Second World War until the communist take-over of Czechoslovakia in 1948, Muir served as Director of the British Council in Prague. He then moved to a similar role in Rome. He was appointed Warden of Newbattle Abbey College in 1950 and spent a year as visiting Professor of English at Harvard University in the USA (1955-56).
He was awarded honorary degrees from several universities including the University of Edinburgh (1947) and a CBE in 1953. He died at Swaffham Prior, Cambridgeshire, and was buried in the churchyard there. He is remembered by a memorial plaque in St. Magnus' Cathedral in Kirkwall.
