Tales and Imaginings

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...