Wretched Rishi not a man to focus on the past? (9)
I believe the answer is:
historian
'the past?' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are singular nouns, I cannot see how they can define each other.
'wretched rishi not a man to focus' is the wordplay.
'wretched' is an anagram indicator.
'to focus' says to take the centre (focus can mean the centre of something).
The central letter of 'man' is 'a'.
'rishi'+'not'+'a'='rishinota'
'rishinota' with letters rearranged gives 'HISTORIAN'.
'on' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for historian that I've seen before include "Past master" , "One sort of academic" , "Writer about the past" , "So thin air suits recorder and analyst of past events" , "chronicler" .)