Ròp is Mol

by Donnchadh MacGillÌosa

A new collection of short stories from the author of Crann-fìge / Fig Tree. This consists of 20 short stories in Gaelic, with English versions. Gillies is one of the best short story writer in Gaelic at the moment, and these stories are consistently of a very high level indeed; at their best they are on a par with the best in Crann-fìge, his previous collection, which won the Highland Book Prize. Gillies creates a coherent and compelling world, by turns realistic, symbolic and infused with complex and fruitful images and characters; his language is rich and fluent throughout, and if the reader may be caught out by the way that the stories range from Ness to Nazareth to a park bench in Edinburgh, that is just a strength of the continuity of the voice. These are short stories of a very high calibre indeed; they are playful as well as being ambitious.