Booker winner is the only British-born writer on list
THE only British-born nominee shortlisted for the Booker Prize has triumphed with his debut novel after judges were explicitly told to pick only one winner, after a controversial jointaward last year.
Douglas Stuart has become only the second Scottish winner of the £50,000 award, for Shuggie Bain.
The novel was described as “not an easy read” and was based on the author witnessing the alcohol addiction of his mother during the Eighties in his native Glasgow. On being announced the winner, he said: “My mother is on every page of this book and without her, I wouldn’t be here.”
Stuart was the only writer from the UK to feature on the 2020 shortlist, but judges said they did not select him to appease those opposed to international and particularly US success in the Booker. The prize’s bosses, however, appear to have placated purists who had criticised the selection of Margaret Atwood and Bernardine Evaristo as dual winners last year despite clear rules against this.
A directive was given to the 2020 judging panel stipulating they could only pick one winner. Months of reading and judging ended yesterday with a smooth, hour-long discussion in which the sole British-born nominee and only white man on the diverse shortlist was named winner.
“It wasn’t something we set out to do,” said Margaret Busby, the literary critic who chaired the judging panel. “We were not trying to tick boxes or think what people were going to say.”
Since 2014, US authors have been eligible for the British literary prize, with calls by some for a reversal of the rule after a string of American winners.
Last year there was further annoyance for prize sticklers when joint winners were announced, contravening rules established in 1993.
Gaby Wood, the literary director of the Booker Prize Foundation, said: “Last year there was a rule break. This year they were under strict instruction not to choose two winners.” It will provide insurance against such controversial decisions in future.
Ms Evaristo, a British writer, was significantly less commercially successful than the Canadian Ms Atwood, with whom she shared the award. Stuart beat competition from US author Diane Cook, Zimbabwean novelist Tsitsi Dangarembga, Dubaibas e d American Avni Doshi, Ethiopian-american Maaza Mengiste, and another US writer, Brandon Taylor.
Dame Hilary Mantel, who has won the prize twice, did not make the cut after appearing on the longlist.
Glasgow-born Stuart has become only the second Scottish winner after James Kelman’s book How Late It Was, How Late was picked in 1994, to the consternation of judges dismayed by its use of dialect words.
Stuart was nevertheless inspired by the novel, and Ms Busby said Shuggie Bain was “not an easy read but a very worthy winner ”. Hi s win was announced by the Duchess of Cornwall during a virtual ceremony overseen by Barack Obama, the former US president.
Stuart said: “I know I’m only the second Scottish book in 50 years to have won and that means, I think, a lot for regional voices, for working-class stories, so thank you.”
The 44-year- old graduated from Royal College of Art before moving to New York to start a career in fashion design, and began writing in his spare time.