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“I always wanted to be a writer, so this is fulfilling a dream,” said Stuart, whose novel about a working-class family in the 1980s was inspired by his own childhood.
“This has changed my whole life,” he said in his acceptance speech.
Like the other finalists, the 44-year-old writer, who now lives in New York, was watching the ceremony socially estranged via video link due to the coronavirus lockdown in Britain.
Book about a child’s love for a faulty parent
Stuart’s book reflects his own experiences growing up with a mother who was an alcoholic and died of her addiction.
He described the book as a “love story” that explores the kind of “unconditional and often proven love” that children can have for their faulty parents.
In an emotional speech, she said: “My mother would be delighted, she would be absolutely delighted and I think she would be proud.”
He said it had taken “a lot of love and pain,” and writing the book was “incredibly healing for me.”
He also paid tribute to his hometown, saying that “growing up in Glasgow I think is one of the greatest inspirations of my life.”
Debut Novelists Dominate 2020 Awards
Stuart was one of four debut novelists among the six finalists for one of the most prestigious literary awards in the world.
Before the announcement, British sportsbooks had endorsed Stuart to claim the award for best fiction in English published in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
He was chosen as the winner of the most diverse list in the award’s five-decade history at a ceremony that featured contributions from former US President Barack Obama and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall.
The Booker Prize has launched careers and generated controversy since its inception in 1969.
The winner receives £ 50,000 (R1.02m) in prizes and great international attention.
Literary greats among previous winners
The judges in 2019 broke the rule book by jointly awarding it to Canadian author Margaret Atwood and Anglo-Nigerian author Bernardine Evaristo.
Evaristo said at Thursday’s ceremony that winning the award was a “magical moment” and “I feel like I was launched into the world as an author.”
Past honorees have included celebrity writers from Ian McEwan and Julian Barnes to Kazuo Ishiguro and Roddy Doyle.
Paul Beatty became the first US winner when Booker gave in to the pressure and began to include authors from outside the Commonwealth, Ireland and Zimbabwe in 2013.
‘Welcome the new’
The 2020 finalists also included American Avni Doshi’s first novel. Burnt sugar alongside fellow American debutant Diane Cook (The new desert) and Brandon Taylor (Real life).
Zimbabwean author Tsitsi Dangarembga (This pitiful body) and the Ethiopian-American Maaza Mengiste (The King of Shadows) were the only established authors on the list.
The list was narrowed by a panel of five judges from a long list of 13 finalists dominated by the United States, which included veteran Hilary Mantel.
Margaret Busby, president of the five judges of 2020, said before announcing the award that “discovering great literature depends on freeing the imagination, being open to receive the new.”
“I don’t think I’m breaking the rules by saying this: please read all the books on the short list,” he added.
Finalists cover complex topics
Dangarembga’s final volume in his trilogy that began with Nervous conditions tells the journey of a young woman from Zimbabwe who sinks into poverty.
Mengiste, the first Ethiopian author to appear on Booker’s short list, tells the story of the uprising against the Italian invasion in the 1930s.
Burnt sugar explores the complex relationship between an elderly mother and her daughter in contemporary India, while The new desert is a dystopian fiction set in a world made inhospitable by the climate crisis.
Real life The debut follows an introvert man’s experience of racism when he arrives at an American university.
– By Joe Jackson © Agence France-Presse
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