But these parts can also feel episodic and digressive when set against Gibb’s journal extracts which, collectively, constitute the bulk of the novel. As we pinball back and forth between them—as well as the growing number of sub-narratives they spawn, like Russian dolls—each strand makes its own claim to the truth; each claim, in turn, is undermined by another. And, in the present day, eight-year-old Lachie tells his elderly neighbour Maja of a ghost he thinks he has seen.

What I’m reading: James Robertson - Penguin Books UK

Back in 2009, no-one thought of her as the queen of historical fiction, and even if they had done, I doubt whether she would have relished the title, because historical fiction was genre stuff, surely, not really literature ? One of Robertson’s skills as a novelist is to make both events real and imagined feel equally convincing. Several people I know have also read News of the Dead and we are of one mind: this is a superb book, and how the stories coalesce is the engine behind turning the page. Several of Robertson’s novels have explored the difficulty in establishing a definitive version of events.Gibb emerges as the chief protagonist and it is in his account that we encounter rounded characters, carefully constructed set-pieces and expertly controlled drama. Land clearance and its legacy is still a very controversial topic in the Highlands; the triumph of this book is not to diminish what happened there but to show that, despite its peculiarly brutal and culturally devastating characteristics, it was a late manifestation of a movement that had already permanently changed the population distribution of the Lowlands.

James Robertson - Penguin Books UK James Robertson - Penguin Books UK

These stories are gathered by an anonymous monk and written into a book which remains in the glen, first in the abbey and then, following the reformation, in the big house where it is kept in the library by the laird and his family. Read all This short documentary/drama follows award winning author James Robertson, as he explores the writing of his new novel News of the Dead, which is set in the fictional Glen Conach, Scotland. Covering such a vast time frame and questioning the truth of mythology, it really came to life for me in the final third, making it a more than worthwhile read. The book also explores the notion of what is true and what is invention, and how easy (or difficult) it is to tell the difference.

In our own restless, shifting times many of us have lost any sense of rootedness to a particular place. While incarcerated, he wrote this astonishing book, which had to be smuggled out of prison to be published. And how that remote beautiful landscape lives in and changes and even saves the people who dwell in it. Her tory is important and will be woven into the tale of Glen Conach, and will become part of its history.

BBC Sounds - News of the Dead by James Robertson - Available BBC Sounds - News of the Dead by James Robertson - Available

Made by award winning filmmaker Anthony Baxter, the short documentary/drama follows Robertson as he explores the writing of his new novel News of the Dead, which is set in the fictional Glen Conach. There are letters, memoirs, journals, academic records, archival transcriptions, simple narration and the translation of The Book of Conach. Whatever the case, Gibb’s refuge does force him into some kind of honest living for once; in the end his act as antiquarian goes far enough for him to complete his translation, however ill-intended. Robertson is also the author of four short story collections, most recently 365: Stories, five poetry collections and numerous children's books written in English and Scots. What is clear to us, though, is that her creator has written a wise and hugely satisfying novel about stories, sanctuary and, to quote the Baron, the “strange, heeliegoleerie world we bide in”.

These, she implies, are the “great men of history”, whose efforts here are undone by a queen faking a miscarriage “and a dumpy widow-woman carrying a piss pot”. There was an element of mystery as I wondered what connected the three parts of the story, with Maja’s story from the contemporary strand being particularly intriguing. In 1574, Scotland is taking back control of religion, banishing the European mode of worship, but the Great Religious Breakaway is not yet complete.