A Selective History of Scottish PEN from 1950 to 1997

This short history of post-World War II Scottish PEN, based on the PEN archives in Edinburgh and London, discusses Scottish involvement in the first post-War PEN congresses; the Edinburgh PEN congress in 1950, and Hugh MacDiarmid's protest against UNESCO's involvement; the Frederick Niven Prize, as an indicator of Scottish PEN's relation to current Scottish writing from the 1950s to Alasdair Gray's Lanark (1981); the Edinburgh PEN International Congress in 1997; and the role of the Scottish ex-diplomat Paul Henderson Scott in the 1990s in PEN International's policies towards small nations, ethnic conflicts, and minority cultures and languages, and in the creation of Makars’ Court, Edinburgh.