Kenneth White was born in the
Gorbals area of
Glasgow, Scotland, but he spent his childhood and adolescence at
Fairlie near
Largs on the
Ayrshire coast, where his father worked as a railway signalman. In Fairlie, he encountered
Dugald Semple, borrowing books from him and becoming influenced by his philosophy of simple living. White obtained a
double first in French and German from the
University of Glasgow. From 1959 until 1963, White studied at the
University of Paris, where he obtained a state doctorate. White purchased "Gourgounel", an old farm in the
Ardèche region of France, where he could spend the summers and autumns studying and working on what would become
Letters from Gourgounel. Kenneth White lived on the north coast of
Brittany with his wife Marie-Claude, who is a translator and photographer. He died there on 11 August 2023, at the age of 87. == Bibliography ==