Alan Riach

Alan Riach, Professor of Scottish Literature at the University of Glasgow, is a poet, critic, and one of the leading interpreters of Scotland’s cultural imagination. Born in Airdrie in 1957, he studied at Cambridge and Glasgow before spending over a decade in New Zealand, returning to take up his chair in Scottish literature. His publications span both poetry — This Folding Map, An Open Return, First & Last Songs, Clearances, Homecoming, The Winter Book, and The MacDiarmid Memorandum — and criticism, most notably as General Editor of the Carcanet Collected Works of Hugh MacDiarmid and author of Hugh MacDiarmid’s Epic Poetry and Representing Scotland in Literature, Popular Culture and Iconography.

His work continually explores the intersections of literature with art, music, and national identity. Co-authored with Alexander Moffat, Arts of Resistance: Poets, Portraits and Landscapes of Modern Scotland (Luath, 2008), was described in the Times Literary Supplement as ‘a landmark book’ and Riach’s 734-page Scottish Literature: An Introduction (Luath, 2022) was described in The Times as ‘magisterial’. Beyond his own writing, Riach has been a cultural leader: former Convener of the Saltire Society, he also served as President of the Association for Scottish Literary Studies (2006-2010) and remains active in literary and educational trusts. He has contributed widely to newspapers, debates, and public discussions, championing the role of the arts in shaping Scotland’s sense of self. Combining scholarship with a poet’s sensibility, and rooted in both family and community, Riach embodies the conviction that literature is a living conversation between people, place, and history.