The School of Literature and Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia has a back catalogue of lecturers and alumni that reads like a who's who of modern literature.
Now the school, in which writer Malcolm Bradbury pioneered the UK's first university course in creative writing, is looking for someone to ensure the discipline remains credible in an academic context. In this week's Times Higher , it is advertising for a full-time professor of contemporary writing to start next January.
Other renowned figures to have passed through the university's doors include the Poet Laureate, Andrew Motion, who ran the MA course, playwright Harold Pinter and novelist Doris Lessing, who both gave lectures there. Its graduates include writers Ian McEwan and Kazuo Ishiguro.
Clive Scott, head of school, explained that although the university would be open to accepting an author for the position the school was principally looking for someone with interest in critical theory.
He believes that the proliferation of university creative writing courses has undermined the discipline, fuelling a feeling that such programmes are simply add-ons to academic study.
As a result, the school is keen to promote dialogue between creative and critical writing - encouraging staff and students on either side to experiment with the other genre. "The (appointee) needs to be someone who has a view and a vision about how the relationship between the creative and the critical can be driven," Professor Scott said.
"We need to remember people are coming to do creative writing courses with an academic qualification attached."
The university has recently restructured its faculties and the new contemporary writing chair will replace a chair in Scandinavian literature.
The successful applicant is most likely to have a background in critical writing.
Although the school - rated 5 in the 2001 research assessment exercise - has several published novelists on its staff, the majority of academics are involved in literary criticism, translation, biography writing or performance.