Edited by Marie-Odile Pittin-Hedon, Camille Manfredi, Scott Hames (Edinburgh UP, April 2022)

A provisional re-mapping of Scotland’s post-devolution literary culture, these fifteen essays explore how literature, theatre and visual art have both shaped and reflected the “new Scotland” promised by parliamentary devolution.

Chapters explore leading figures such as Alasdair Gray, David Greig, Kathleen Jamie and Jackie Kay, while also paying particular attention to women’s writing by Kate Atkinson, A.L. Kennedy, Denise Mina, Ali Smith, Louise Welsh, and writers of colour such Bashabi Fraser, Annie George, Tendai Huchu, Chin Li and Raman Mundair. Tracing continuities with 1990s debates alongside “edges of the new” visible since Indyref 2014, these critics offer an in-depth study of Scotland’s vibrant literary production in the period of devolution, viewed both within and beyond the frame of national representation.

My chapter is on ‘Democracy and the Indyref Novel’.

Here’s a blog introducing the book and situating it within Scottish criticism since devolution.

The through-line of Scottish Writing After Devolution is the combined ‘crisis’ and ‘interregnum’ of this period. But these essays don’t hide in indeterminacy. They show Scottish literature and Scottish literary criticism breaking in dozens of directions – none too comfortable with the nation-lodestar at which they’ve often been pointed. (Corey Gibson, University of Glasgow)

Cover image: Kate Downie, ‘New Day Crossing’