The death of Robin Jenkins robbed us of a highly distinctive voice in Scottish literature, one whose considerable contribution it's perhaps too early to fully measure.
Meanwhile, Jenkins' memory has been kept fresh by a series of lectures and The Robin Jenkins Literary Award, for works of fiction and non-fiction with an environmental theme or concern. Jenkins, a conscientious objector, himself spent the years between 1940 and 1946 with the Forestry Commission in Argyll, the setting for possibly his best known work The Cone Gatherers.
Although an author whose books have a variety of settings and moral and ethical concerns, Jenkins had an affinity and concern with the natural world which this award seeks to reflect. A panel of judges, consisting of broadcaster and writer Brian Morton, Alan Taylor, Associate Editor of the Sunday Herald, Professor Isobel Murray and writer Katie Wood.
The shortlist was splendid in its diversity, from academic work to imaginative fiction; The Carrifan Wildwood Story by Myrtle and Phillip Ashmole, a remarkable account of developing community woodland, Doubling Back; Ten Paths Trodden in Memory by Linda Cracknell, a series of memoir of journeys taken and their meaning for the author, Ecology in Modern Scottish Literature by Louisa Gairn, an examination of the influence of landscape and environment on Scottish writers, The Last Bear by Mandy Haggith, a novel set in an imagined pre-historic Scotland, Star Gazing by Linda Gillard, set on the Isle of Skye and in Edinburgh, and Serious Things by Gregory Norminton.
Although Mandy Haggith emerged as overall winner, there was clearly much to value in the work of the other entrants and Morton indicated how difficult it had been to arrive at a decision amongst such diverse and considerable talent. Jenkins himself continues to be read and studied and will undoubtedly continue to be. One can but wish all the short-listed writers as much in their own different and necessarily divergent careers.
Copyright Bill Dunlop 2009
First published on EdinburghGuide.com 2009