MacDiarmid Centenary Issue

Chapman #69

by Joy Hendry (Editor), Michael Grieve (Contributor), Deirdre Chapman (Contributor)

A new generation responds to that radical and controversial spirit – Hugh MacDiarmid. Distinguished contemporaries remember the man – his son, Michael and daughter-in-law Deirdre Chapman, Norman MacCaig, Hamish Henderson, Sorley MacLean, Edwin Morgan, George Mackay Brown, Roderick Watson, Pearse Hutchinson, Derick Thomson – and many others, and leading writers and critics of the (then) younger generation including James Robertson, George Gunn, and W N Herbert consider MacDiarmid's legacy.

Robert Alan Jamieson argues for a formal Declaration of Cultural Independence.

Women writers are represented by the winners of the MacDiarmid Centenary Prize (Mary Angus) and the Scots Language Society's MacDiarmid Tassie 1992 (Lydia Robb), as well as Sheena Blackhall, Ellie McDonald and Anne Shaw.

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Joy Hendry (b. 1953) is a Scottish writer and literary critic. She was educated at Perth Academy, the University of Edinburgh and Moray House College of Education.

While still at university, she became involved in editing and producing the Scottish literary magazine Chapman. "Controversial, influential, outspoken and intelligent", the magazine was founded in 1970 and edited by Hendry from 1976. Under her wing it published fiction, poetry and essays by both established and emerging Scottish writers.

Hendry taught English at Knox Academy in Haddington from 1977 to 1984, then left to become a full-time writer.

Her Gang Doun wi' a Sang, a celebration of the life and work of William Soutar, was staged at Perth Theatre in October 1990. In 1991 she delivered the Neil M. Gunn Centenary lecture in Caithness, which was later published in book form.