Martin Cathcart Frödén’s first novel Devil take the Hindmost was published in 2016, winning the Dundee International Book Prize, and his first poetry collection Light and other Observations was published by the National Trust for Scotland while their Poet in Residence in 2018. His most recent book A Circular Argument was published in 2021 and is a hybrid form novel/creative nonfiction. His short fiction has won awards including BBC Radio 4's Opening Lines.
He holds a PhD from the University of Glasgow (Creative Writing), with support from the Glasgow School of Art (Architecture) and the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research (Criminology), and he is currently a lecturer in Creative Writing at Malmö University, Sweden, where he lives with his wife and three kiddos.
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A Circular Argument
Uniquely combining two parts, one critical in the form of a research piece, and the other creative in the form of a fictional novel, this ground-breaking book spans creative writing, criminology and architecture to look at the ways in which power and hierarchies are explored and exploited in space.
Part one, A Circular Argument, is informed by a series of reflections on the author’s work as a prison teacher. Delving into the obsession with the circular as an architectural gesture and as a concept combining containment and transparency, the author examines spatial hierarchies across time, from the ideal planned city of the Middle Ages, to the all-seeing eye of modern digital society.
Part two, The Out, follows the fictional story of a disgruntled architect, a clever prisoner and an ingenious escape plan. Exploring how the complications and surprises of human interaction colour and change the supposedly watertight systems of social control society designs, the novel disrupts how we might think about space and power.
Injecting new energy and creative perspectives into traditional academic research, this practice-led book is an innovative exploration between critical and creative approaches, and between multiple social and spatial hierarchies.