Robin Jenkins was praised by Eleanor Morton as "one of Scotland's finest contemporary writers" and by Douglas Gifford in Books in Scotland (Spring 1996) as "one of the great novelists in English." Yet, Jenkins has never gained international recognition despite the serious critical attention given to many of his novels. Even in Scotland, public and academic recognition of his work has been marginal when compared with his more successful contemporaries. Jenkins is undeniably a Scottish writer, but he has remained an outsider in the Scottish literary scene. He has kept himself at a distance from the literary circles of Scotland and has been reluctant to promote his work in the media and elsewhere. This self-chosen isolation is perhaps one of the reasons Jenkins's work has not been more widely acclaimed. It may also contribute to the fact that it is problematic to place his work within specific literary traditions...