Scottish Literature

ALAN RIACH is the Professor of Scottish Literature at the University of Glasgow. He was born in Airdrie in 1957. He studied English literature at Cambridge University from 1976 to 79. He completed his PhD in the Department of Scottish Literature at Glasgow University in 1986. His academic career has included positions as a postdoctoral research fellow, senior lecturer, Associate Professor and Pro-Dean in the Faculty of Arts, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand 1986-2000.

Obviously indispensable; I am learning new facts and possibilities on every page. – NEAL ASCHERSONIt takes women and men of prodigious faculty to advance the institution of a National Literature. – NIYI OSUNDAREThe presiding spirit over this book is Hugh MacDiarmid… – STUART KELLYScottish Literature: An Introduction, Alan Riach’s magnum opus, is all that the term implies. It is encyclopaedic, refreshing, personal and yet detached, and it has provoked me into buying Gavin Douglas’s Aeneid, The Eneados, which is a bloody good read, as is the book that prompted its purchase! – JOHN PURSERAlan Riach’s Scottish Literature: An Introduction is excellent – incredibly comprehensive! I think it is pitched at exactly the right level for the audience it’s aimed at. I’m already well into it and am looking forward to reading the whole book. – RONALD RENTONMagisterial – THE TIMESA magnum opus/tour de force/labour of love, its impressively encyclopaedic range and lucid attention to detail are irradiated by a heart-warming enthusiasm for the subject. It conveys both the grandeur of a mountain, and the exhilaration of the climb. – STEWART CONNScottish Literature: An Introduction is ‘in a class of its own’ with ‘many happy provocations… Riach is a poet and a serious and intuitive, voracious, intellectual. The mirror to his mind, his writing sings and bustles with energy and daring. It ranges far and wide across the arts, nationally and internationally, and rallies the reader to be bolder… This is surely a work destined to be a landmark in Scotland’s literary history, for all time, a classic at a critical moment in its subject’s destiny. – ANDREW McNEILLIE, THE NATIONALI’ve been going through Scottish Literature: An Introduction with delight, marvelling at the way you have of stating things so accessibly. You’re a gift to the reader, and your prose never gets stodgy and clunky. Your proselytising zeal is exactly what Scottish literature needs. Your refusal to bow not just to Anglocentrism but to the Anglo-Saxon supremacism of those who promote Scots only at the expense of Gaelic is a credit to you. And I really appreciated the helpful anti-elitism of your approach. The 101 places chapter rounds things off beautifully and in a most unexpected way. – PATRICK CROTTY, EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF IRISH AND SCOTTISH LITERATURE, UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEENI am just rolling up to the final pages of your book. I have relished every page and feel excited and energised by it. – DAVID HARDING, ARTISTI am very much enjoying your guide to Scottish literature. I dip in and out and find myself learning (many) things I didn't know and having some of my assumptions and judgements confirmed but some challenged too. – DAVID HUTCHISON, PROFESSOR IN MEDIA POLICYScottish Literature: an introduction is a huge achievement and a great treat for all of Scotland. – HELEN BELLANY, ARTISTCongratulations. Scottish Literature: an introduction is terrific, a significant book for Scotland and the wider world. It’s a mighty tome, yet the language trips along lightly with great ease for the reader, refreshingly accessible, and packed with fascinating treasures. It’s so inclusive, setting up a feeling of community by frequently quoting other voices and creating a rounded and hugely positive sense of Scotland as a nation. A marvellous depth and breadth of literature is presented, always within a political and cultural context. This is a book that should be on shelves all over the world. – GERDA STEVENSON