MacDonald Harris/ Donald Heiney

MacDonald Harris was the pseudonym of Donald Heiney (1921-1993). He is remembered by his family and friends as a loving husband and father, a sailor, a traveler, a reader and a keen and relentless observer of human nature. His students and colleagues remember him as a teacher who demanded and got nothing but the best, a student of the world's literature, and a scholar who was erudite in a surprising variety of fields. And finally, his readers worldwide remember him as prolific and inventive writer, who explored the mysteries of the human psyche in a series of quirky, magical, and witty novels and stories.

This page brings together information about Donald Heiney the man and MacDonald Harris the writer.

A Memoir of my Early Years by Donald Heiney.
A Short Biography of Donald Heiney
In Memoriam (by Hazard Adams and Murray Krieger)
2012 Tribute at UC Irvine
Publications
Special Collection Holdings at the University of California, Irvine.
Other Links
Geneaology and Family History

Upcoming and Recent Reissues

MacDonald Harris's final novel, The Carp Castle, was published for the first time in October 2012, by Galileo Publishers and then in the US in 2013 by The Overlook Press. In 2011 The Balloonist was reissued in the United Kingdom by Galileo Publishers , with a forward by Phillip Pullman, and then in the US by The Overlook Press. Screenplay was reissued in the UK in 2013, with an introduction by Simon Callow and was republished in the US in 2014. Galileo Publishers published Yukiko in June of 2014 (with an introduction by Dinah Birch) and published Herma in the spring of 2015 (with an introduction by Michael Chabon ).

We are excited to announce that MacDonald Harris' second novel, Mortal Leap, out of print for many years, will be republished in May of 2024 as part of the Recovered Book series from Boiler House Press.

Last updated September 9, 2022

heiney@physics.upenn.edu.