Douglas Stuart wins the 2020 Booker Prize!

Scottish-American author Douglas Stuart has just been revealed as the 2020 Booker Prize winner for Shuggie Bain, his semi-autobiographical debut novel about poverty, addiction, and the unshakeable love between a mother and her young son in Glasgow, 1981.

Douglas Stuart

Stuart’s win was announced in a virtual ceremony with a star-studded literary line-up that included last year’s co-winner, Bernardine Evaristo (Girl, Woman, Other), HRH The Duchess of Cornwall, and former U. S. President Barack Obama, whose memoir A Promised Land was released only a few days ago.

Margaret Busby, chair of the 2020 judging panel that included Lee Child, Sameer Rahim, Lemn Sissay, and Emily Wilson, said:

“Shuggie Bain is destined to be a classic — a moving, immersive and nuanced portrait of a tight-knit social world, its people and its values. The heart-wrenching story tells of the unconditional love between Agnes Bain — set on a descent into alcoholism by the tough circumstances life has dealt her — and her youngest son. Shuggie struggles with responsibilities beyond his years to save his mother from herself, at the same time as dealing with burgeoning feelings and questions about his own otherness. Gracefully and powerfully written, this is a novel that has impact because of its many emotional registers and its compassionately realised characters. The poetry in Douglas Stuart’s descriptions and the precision of his observations stand out: nothing is wasted.”

Shuggie Bain was selected as the 2020 Booker Prize winner from a rich and racially diverse shortlist that included many other debut novelists, such as Brandon Taylor (Real Life) and Avni Doshi (Burnt Sugar). Accepting the prize via webcam, Stuart declared himself ‘absolutely stunned’ at the win and paid homage to the Prize’s previous Scottish winners such as James Kelman, who won the Prize in 1994 for his novel How Late It Was, How Late. He also thanked his mother, who he described as being “on every page of this book – I’ve been clear without her I wouldn’t be here, my work wouldn’t be here”.

As the 2020 Booker Prize winner, Douglas Stuart will take home £50,000 in prize money, a trophy, a designer-bound edition of his book and a further £2,500 for being shortlisted. Congratulations Douglas!

—Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart (Pan Macmillan Australia) is out now. Find out more about the Booker Prizes here.

Shuggie Bain

by Douglas Stuart

It is 1981. Glasgow is dying and good families must grift to survive.

Agnes Bain has always expected more from life. She dreams of greater things: a house with its own front door and a life bought and paid for outright (like her perfect, but false, teeth). But Agnes is abandoned by her philandering husband, and soon she and her three children find themselves trapped in a decimated mining town. As she descends deeper into drink, the children try their best to save her...

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