Robin Jenkins
Robin Jenkins was a Scottish author and educator, born on September 11, 1912, in Flemington, Lanarkshire. Growing up in a challenging environment after the death of his father, he excelled academically, earning a scholarship to Hamilton Academy and later studying English at the University of Glasgow. Jenkins's literary career began in earnest after World War II, during which he served as a conscientious objector and worked with the Forestry Commission. He published nearly thirty novels and two short story collections, with his most notable work being "The Cone-Gatherers," which explores themes of good and evil against the backdrop of his experiences in forestry.
His writing often drew from his own life experiences, including his time teaching abroad in countries like Afghanistan and Spain. Jenkins returned to Scotland, where he continued to write until his death on February 24, 2005, at the age of ninety-two. His contributions to literature were recognized with several awards and honors, including being appointed to the Order of the British Empire in 1999. Jenkins's storytelling has drawn comparisons to literary figures like John Steinbeck and Thomas Hardy, appreciated for both their straightforward narratives and deeper meanings.
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Robin Jenkins
- Born: September 11, 1912
- Birthplace: Flemington, near Cambuslang, Lanarkshire, Scotland
- Died: February 25, 2005
- Place of death:
Biography
Robin Jenkins was born on September 11, 1912, in the mining village of Flemington near Cambuslang, Lanarkshire, Scotland, one of four children born to James and Annie Robin Jenkins. His father died when he was seven years old, and his mother worked as a cook and housekeeper to support her poverty-stricken family. Jenkins, a brilliant student, won a scholarship to attend Hamilton Academy and later studied English at the University of Glasgow, earning an M.A. with honors in 1936. The following year he married Mary “May” MacIntyre Wylie, with whom he had three children: Helen, Ann, and Colin. Jenkins taught for several years in the rough East End of Glasgow.
During World War II, Jenkins accompanied his primary school pupils on their evacuation to Moffat, a wealthy Scottish Border town. A pacifist, he registered as a conscientious objector, and his status was accepted on the condition that he aid the war effort by serving in forestry or agriculture. From 1940 to 1946, he worked for the Forestry Commission in Argyll, a scenic area of Scotland.
After the war, Jenkins returned to teaching and began to write. His first novel, So Gaily Sings the Lark, dealt with his experience in forestry. Over the next half century, Jenkins produced almost thirty novels and two collections of short stories, A Far Cry from Bowmore, and Other Stories and Lunderston Tales. Much of Jenkins’s work, particularly his early novels, has a strong autobiographical basis. His best-known novel, The Cone-Gatherers, a study in evil and an examination of man’s propensity for war, centers around the simple-minded, crippled cone-gatherer, Calum, and the deformity-hating Duror, and it also touches upon his work in forestry. His football story, The Thistle and the Grail, and his comical interpretation of the wartime evacuation of children, Guests of War, also recount incidents from his life.
For almost a decade, beginning in 1957, Jenkins lived abroad while teaching English for the British Council. This work took him to Kabul, Afghanistan; Barcelona, Spain; Borneo; and Sabah, Malaysia. He later settled in Toward near Dunoon, Scotland, where he retired from teaching in 1970 to devote himself full-time to writing. Many of Jenkins’s experiences overseas appeared in his fiction, most notably in his novel, Dust on the Paw, set in Afghanistan.
Jenkins continued to write virtually to the end of his long life, sustaining himself by work through the deaths of his wife and his son, Colin. His last novel, Lady Magdalen, is set in seventeenth century Scotland and is one of his two historical novels; the other, The Awakening of George Darroch, is set in the mid-nineteenth century. Compared to John Steinbeck and Thomas Hardy for his ability to tell a straightforward story with hidden layers of meaning, Jenkins was honored late in life. He was appointed to the Order of the British Empire in 1999, was a finalist for the Man Booker Prize in 2001 for Childish Things, and received the Saltire Society’s Fletcher of Saltoun Award in 2001 and the Saltire Society’s Lifetime of Achievement in Literature Award in 2003. He died on February 24, 2005, at the age of ninety-two.