Alan Riach is a poet and Professor of Scottish Literature at Glasgow University. Born in Airdrie in 1957, he studied at Cambridge and Glasgow, then worked in New Zealand at the University of Waikato from 1986 to 2000.

He is the author of five books of poems: The Folding Map, An Open Return, First & Last Songs, Clearances and Homecoming, and of critical books, including Hugh MacDiarmid's Epic Poetry and Representing Scotland in Literature, Popular Culture and Iconography. He is President of the Scottish Association of Literary Studies and his radio series The Good of the Arts was first broadcast in New Zealand in 2001.