IN 2016, the writer Nan Shepherd made history by becoming the first woman to feature on a Scottish bank note.
Yet, despite the recognition, she still strikes a mysterious figure – an enigma who dressed as a prim school teacher but liked to bathe naked in mountain tarns; a woman who lived as a spinster but had a love affair with a mystery man, and a successful author who seemingly abandoned her writing after just three novels, even though she was hailed as the Scottish Virginia Woolf and compared with the likes of Thomas Hardy.
She was also one of the first UK authors whose work was influenced by Buddhist and Eastern philosophy but was so far ahead of her time that it is only in recent years that her writing has really taken off – so much so that her book The Living Mountain has been translated into 16 languages and inspired a tour by Icelandic singer Bjork.
