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Author Description William 'Bill' Findlay (Gaelic: <i>Uilliam Fionnlagh</i>) was a Scottish writer. As a translator and critic, he made an important contribution to Scottish theatre. He worked as a tutor in the Department of Education at Strathclyde University and was a founder Editor and regular contributor to the Scottish and international literature, arts and affairs magazine, <i>Cencrastus</i>.<br /><br />Findlay attended Dunfermline High School and left home in 1965 to work as a civil servant in London. He returned to Scotland in 1970 to attend Newbattle Abbey College, spending two years there before going on to Stirling University, where he graduated with a first class honours degree in English in 1976.<br /><br />For the first issue of <i> Cencrastus</i>, in 1979, Findlay interviewed <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3472.Margaret_Atwood" title="Margaret Atwood" rel="nofollow noopener">Margaret Atwood</a> on the relationship of Canadian writers and writing to the 'Imperial Cultures' of America and Britain.<br /><br />In 1980, Findlay and <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/19232100.Martin_Bowman" title="Martin Bowman" rel="nofollow noopener">Martin Bowman</a> transated <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/264019.Michel_Tremblay" title="Michel Tremblay" rel="nofollow noopener">Michel Tremblay</a>'s <i>Les Belles Soeurs</i> into contemporary Scots as <i>The Guid Sisters</i>. Michael Boyd produced their adaptation for Glasgow's Tron Theatre in 1989 and it went on to play in Toronto in 1990 and the Centaur Theatre in Montreal in 1992. It was revived by the National Theatre of Scotland and the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, in 2012.<br /><br />In the years following the première of <i>The Guid Sisters</i>, Bowman and Findlay translated seven other Tremblay plays into Scots: <i>Hosanna</i>, <i>The Real World?</i> (Tron); <i>The House Among the Stars</i> (Traverse Theatre and Perth Theatre); <i>Forever Yours</i>, <i>Marie-Lou</i> (Ladder Man Productions for the Tron); <i>Albertine in Five Times</i> (Clyde Unity); <i>Solumn Mass for a Full Moon in Summer</i> (Traverse Theatre and the Barbican); and <i>If Only...</i> (Royal Lyceum Theatre).<br /><br />Findlay was awarded a PhD in 2000 and held a readership in the School of Drama and Creative Industries, Queen Margaret University College, Edinburgh. He edited and contributed the first chapter to <i>The History of Scottish Theatre</i> (1998). He also edited <i>Scots Plays of the Seventies</i> (2001), <i>Frae Ither Tongues: Essays on Modern Translations into Scots</i> (2004) , and (with John Corbett) <i>Serving Twa Maisters: An Anthology of Scots Translations of Classic Plays</i> (2005).<br />

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