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Scottish author Douglas Stuart won the 2020 Booker Prize for his debut novel, Shuggie Bath. Stuart is the second Scottish winner of the prestigious award, after James Kelman won the 1994 Booker Prize for his novel. How late it was, how late.
Shuggie Bath tells the story of a boy in Glasgow, Scotland, in the 1980s who grows up in public housing surrounded by poverty, violence and addiction. Upon reaching adolescence, Bain grapples with his sexuality, his mother’s worsening alcoholism, and the abandonment of his older brothers. An earlier review from the Booker Prize judges said Shuggie Bath “It creates an incredibly intimate, compassionate and passionate portrait of addiction, courage and love.” After posting in February, Shuggie Bath received stellar reviews and international praise; Vulture called the novel “the best-reviewed book you haven’t read yet in 2020.”
Although it is a work of fiction, Shuggie Bath draws on aspects of Stuart’s real life from his experiences growing up as someone considered different during an unforgiving time in Glasgow. “I wanted to tell the story of what it was like to grow up queer in Glasgow,” Stuart said during his acceptance speech at the ceremony.
Like the protagonist of the story, Hugh “Shuggie” Bain, Stuart had a complicated relationship with his own mother who died after a battle with addiction as a teenager. He said that he has carried this loss, love and pain with him since childhood and let it influence his writing of the novel. Stuart thanked her husband, her readers, the people of Glasgow, and most emphatically her mother: “My mother would be delighted. I think I would be proud. ”
The Booker Prize is awarded each year to a work of fiction, beginning in 1969 as a way to celebrate and promote the reading of contemporary fiction in the UK. Booker Prize winners receive £ 50,000 in prizes. Last year, the award was divided between Margaret Atwood for The testaments and Bernardine Evaristo for Girl, Woman, Other, a move that sparked controversy after judges were explicitly warned not to do so.
This year’s virtual ceremony featured Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, a longtime advocate for literacy; Kazuo Ishiguro, Author of the 1989 Booker Prize What is missing from the day; and former US President Barack Obama, who congratulated the nominees for their recognition and emphasized their affinity for fiction as a way to “help us put ourselves in the shoes of others.” Margaret Busby, this year’s chair of judges, spoke briefly before announcing the winner, stating that voting for Stuart’s Shuggie Bath it was quick and unanimous.
Nominees for the Booker Prize finalist list included Diane Cook The new desert, a dystopian story of a mother and daughter fleeing their polluted and deadly city; Tsitsi Dangarembga following a woman trying to find her balance in Harare, Zimbabwe in This pitiful body; Avni Doshi’s Burnt sugar, the story of a daughter who struggles to take care of her mother with Alzheimer’s disease; Maaza Mengiste’s The Shadow King, which follows female soldiers during Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia; and Brandon Taylor’s Real life, a debut novel that tells the story of a black gay student seeking a graduate degree in a Midwestern college town.
Read more about Book Riot’s Booker Award:
Full 2020 Booker Award List Announced
2020 International Booker Prize Finalist List Announced
