Sons and Pioneers

Iain Bamforth grew up in Glasgow and graduated from its medical school. He has pursued a peripatetic career as a hospital doctor, general practitioner, translator, lecturer in comparative literature, and latterly public health consultant in several developing countries, principally in Asia. His four books of poetry were joined by a fifth, "The Crossing Fee", in 2013.

His prose includes "The Body in the Library" (Verso, 2003), an account of modern medicine as told through literature; and "The Good European" (Carcanet, 2006), a collection of writings on ideas and literature in European history. He is currently working on a collection of aphoristic, fantastic and philosophical stories about medicine conjointly with a book of impressions of Wallacea – the biogeographical name for the various archipelagos between Asia and Australia. Several of his wide-ranging essays and reviews can be read on his website.