About: James Robertson

New pamphlet on the interaction of Scotland’s past with its present and future.

In Finding Out the Rest: History and Scotland Now James Robertson explores how the passage of time has an effect not only on individuals' views of their own lives, but also on the way a community or country perceives its history. The constitutional position of Scotland has been in flux for the last twenty years,…

Praise of Ben Dorain back in stock

We have had a small quantity of the first print-run of Praise of Ben Dorain returned to us, so this title is back in stock. However, it has proved very popular so may not be available for long.

Orcadians at St Andrews

From 7th February until 1st April 2017, including during the StAnza Poetry Festival (1st-5th March), the Byre Theatre in St Andrews is hosting an exhibition of Simon Manfield's original artwork for Orcadians: Seven Impromptus. The images are on display on the Level 4 gallery of the Byre, and the exhibition is free. There is also…

Alan Riach and Bill Innes read from the Birlinn of Clanranald

Alan Riach and Bill Innes read extracts from the poem, in English and the original Gaelic, at Loch Eynort and Kildonan in South Uist.

Alan Riach on his new version of The Birlinn of Clanranald

Listen to Alan Riach, in conversation with Colin Waters of the Scottish Poetry Library, discussing his modern English translation of the great 18th-century poem by Alexander MacDonald

George Mackay Brown and Gerard Manley Hopkins

An interesting essay, published in The National, by Alan Riach (one of our authors) on the influence of Gerard Manley Hopkins on Hugh MacDiarmid and George Mackay Brown (another of our authors) can be read here.

Review of the Birlinn of Clanranald

Ronald Black's perceptive review, in The Bottle Imp ezine, of Alan Riach's English version of the great Gaelic poem, can be read here.

Orcadians: Seven Impromptus by George Mackay Brown

Coming soon from Kettillonia (June 2016), a beautiful new edition, in a limited print, of one of George Mackay Brown's most closely observed studies of the people, land and seascapes of Orkney. More than sixty years after it was written, it has inspired a magnificent set of images by Simon Manfield. We are proud to reproduce both poem and illustrations,…

August 7, 2016 on Protected: Order – August 4, 2016 @ 10:45 AM

From our Backlist

Soft Soap

Five scintillating short stories from Dundee writer and stand-up comic Delia Gallagher. Brimming with energy, poignant, angry, outrageously coorse, and very funny. Gallagher is very…
Read more ...
A Tapsalteerie Touer

Kettillonia is delighted and honoured to publish a small selection from the work of the late Andrew Tannahill, poet, translator and friend of some of…
Read more ...
A Tunnel of Love

"Sets a standard against which you will measure your future reading - for structure, for narrative control, for language, for new ways of writing about…
Read more ...
Fae The Flouers o Evil: Baudelaire in Scots

Twenty-three of Baudelaire's poems refashioned into Scots, a language which seems ideally suited for Baudelaire's dreich, dark images and startling flights of fantasy. OUT OF…
Read more ...
When the Ile Rins Oot

A short selection of squibs, barbs, rants and reflections from James Robertson. The title poem is a mock-apocalyptic vision of post-North Sea Oil Scotland.
Read more ...