Robin Robertson (2018 Event)

A renowned poet whose work often hauntingly evokes the lives of Scottish outsiders, and a mesmerising reader of his own work, Robin Robertson strikes out with a breathtaking new project, The Long Take. In this verse novel, Walker is a war veteran from Nova Scotia who sets out for Los Angeles in 1948. Robertson’s book demonstrates the origins of ‘noir’, presented here with period filmic and musical accompaniment.

 

Robertson has won multiple prestigious awards for his writing and is regarded as one of Scotland’s finest poets. He has been shortlisted for the 2018 Man Booker Prize for The Long Take – about which the judges said: ‘it’s an extraordinary evocation of the debris and the ongoing destruction of war even in times of peace. Robin Robertson shows the flexibility a poet can bring to form and style.’ In this event recorded live at the 2018 Edinburgh International Book Festival, we meet a writer at the height of his powers.