![]() He has tackled such varied subject matter as Scottish devolution and religious fanaticism, his novels a series of inventive, meticulously researched attempts to document Scotland's past and present. ![]() Listed along with Irvine Welsh and James Kelman, Robertson is another in a long line of conscientious, provocative Scottish writers. ![]() Much of his writing uses an (often contentious) issue as a means of developing and exploring character. This blend of the personal and political is typical of Robertson's work. Her husband's means of protest are quieter - he retreats into what he calls ‘the Scottish republic of the mind’: an imagined state that serves as an ‘antidote to the post election hangover a state of being in which all people understood themselves, and what they were doing, and why they were where they were.’ The incident dramatises feelings of disappointment and frustration shared by many Scots. The television promptly explodes, bringing a swift and unexpectedly satisfying end to an interview with a government minister. In the title story of James Robertson's Republics of the Mind, a Scottish woman, enraged by a Conservative victory on an unspecified election night, throws an empty wine bottle at her television screen. ![]()
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