Hind, Archie

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Hind, Archie

PERSONAL: Male.

ADDRESSES: Agent—c/o Author Mail, Birlinn, West Newington House, 10 Newington Rd., Edinburgh EH9 1QS, Scotland.

AWARDS, HONORS: Manchester Guardian Fiction Award, 1966, for The Dear Green Place.

WRITINGS:

The Dear Green Place, New Authors (London, England), 1966, reprinted, Birlinn (Edinburgh, Scotland), 2002.

SIDELIGHTS: Scottish writer Archie Hind is primarily known for The Dear Green Place, a largely autobiographical novel about a working-class writer, Mat Craig, who discovers the true beauty to be found in the industrial city of Glasgow. The title of the book is actually a translation of Glasgow's original Celtic name. For Mat, divided against himself, "writers are always other people," until he surprises himself by becoming a writer. The book was awarded the Manchester Guardian Fiction Prize in the year it was published, and since that time, it has been embraced as one of the seminal books in the city's literary history.

"On its own it stands as a fine evocation of Glasgow—places, people, ethos—with scene after scene where description and emotions blend," wrote Moira Burgess on West Coast online. Neil Philip mentioned the book in a piece for British Book News, commenting that the novel goes "to the heart" of contemporary Glasgow. Since the publication of The Dear Green Place, a number of other working-class novels about Glasgow have been written, confronting the social dislocations and upheavals endemic to the thriving, industrial city. Like Hind, many still manage to find the "dear green place" behind the steel and the grime and the busy lives of city inhabitants.