Book description
From the two volumes of Stones of Aran to the essays collected in
Setting Foot on the Shores of Connemara and My Time in Space, Tim
Robinson has established himself as one of the great non-fiction
writers at work in the English language. In light of this, Tales and
Imaginings, a collection of imaginative writings from five decades,
might seem a profound departure, but to read it is to encounter anew
the integrity and connectedness of Robinson's body of work. In the
earliest stories gathered here, we recognize their author as the young
Robinson, doing National Service in Malaya, whom we encountered in two
searching autobiographical essays from My Time in Space; reading the
most recent piece, 'Three Notes on the Elgin Marbles', we are reminded
of Robinson's essay on his work as a visual artist and its examination
of the role of the museum. In between are stories and imaginative
essays that engage in unexpected ways with the West of Ireland
landscapes Robinson has described so memorably in his previous books.
Most of these pieces straddle recognizable genres; for example 'Orion
the Hunter', which can easily be read as fiction, was selected for The
Best American Essays 1998.
Tim Robinson's non-fiction writings brilliantly transcend
established disciplines and styles, and he has always shown himself to
be an imaginative writer of the calibre of Borges and of Sebald. Tales
and Imaginings confirms that achievement.
TIM ROBINSON was born in England in 1935. Stones of Aran:
Pilgrimage, published in 1985, won the Irish Book Award Literature
Medal and a Rooney Prize Special Award for Literature in 1987. Stones
of Aran: Labyrinth appeared in 1995, and Setting Foot on the Shores of
Connemara was published in 1996. My Time in Space was published in 2001.
ACCLAIM FOR TIM ROBINSON
STONES OF ARAN
'Robinson's Aran will, inevitably, become part of the general myth.
It is a wonderful achievement.' - Seamus Deane, London Review of Books
'A rich and, I think, a great book ... Robinson's poetical view
takes in almost everything about the place, its geology, its birds and
flowers and seaweed, history and folklore and place-names and the
contemporary scene.' - George Mackay Brown, The Tablet
'The best book ever written by an Englishman about Ireland.' -
Jonathan Keates, Independent
SETTING FOOT ON THE SHORES OF CONNEMARA
'Here is a writer who gets the grass singing.' - Penny Perrick, The Times
'He has led our imaginations ever deeper into a near-Proustian
labyrinth of things to see, feel and know.' - Michael Viney, Irish Times
MY TIME IN SPACE
'Robinson's skill and surefootedness are now beyond doubt. As pieces
of writing, these essays are an unalloyed triumph.' - Patrick Curry,
Times Literary Supplement
'Robinson's prose is light and pellucid, intent on conveying his
enviable curiosity about the world.' - Alex Clark, Sunday Times
Tim Robinson, map-maker and writer, was born in England in 1935. He
studied mathematics at Cambridge and worked as a teacher and artist in
Istanbul, Vienna and London. In 1972 he moved to the West of Ireland and
began writing and making maps. He now lives in Roundstone, Connemara,
where he runs the Folding Landscapes studio with his wife Máiréad.
