Aspects of identity

In spite of the loss of political independence, Scotland has remained an identifiable cultural entity to the present day. This study examines Scottish fiction as an expression of the country's national self-consciousness at a time when the debate about Scotland's survival as a nation was particularly vivid, i. e. the years before and after the referendum on a Scottish Assembly in 1979. Distinctive themes and images of contemporary Scottish fiction are outlined in an analysis of thirty-three novels published between 1978 and 1981.