Our prestigious Saltire Literary Awards comprise six literary and two publishing categories that recognise and celebrate a wealth of creative talent from across Scotland’s diverse literary landscape. The 2018 awards include multi-award-winning writers Irvine Welsh, Sally Magnusson and Jackie Kay, alongside the emerging talents of Mick Kitson and Christina Neuwirth. We are thrilled to present the following shortlists that highlight the excellent standard within each category. 

AWARDEE 

Elsewhere, Home by Leila Aboulela

Elsewhere, Home (Saqi Books) is a collection of short stories that draws the reader into the lives of immigrants at home and abroad as they forge new identities and reshape old ones. The collection explores, with subtlety and restraint, the profound feelings of yearning, loss and alienation that come with leaving one’s homeland in pursuit of a different life. 

Leila Aboulela is a Sudanese-born writer whose highly acclaimed work explores identity, migration and Islamic spirituality, bringing to the foreground the challenges faced by Muslims throughout Europe.  Author of five novels, including Lyrics Alley, Fiction Winner of the Scottish Book Awards, Aboulela’s work has been translated into fifteen languages and she has been long-listed three times for the Orange Prize for Fiction. You can read Aboulela’s views on writing and spirituality by following this link- https://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/2020/winter/writing-spiritual-offering-conversation-leila-aboulela-keija-parssinen 

 

NOMINEES 

A Treachery of Spies by Manda Scott, Writer 

 

2019 winner of the McILVANNEY PRIZE FOR THE BEST SCOTTISH CRIME NOVEL, A Treachery of Spies (Transworld Publishers) explores the mystery of an elderly woman found killed in Orleans, France. Having been murdered in the manner of traitors to the Resistance in World War Two, police inspector Inès Picaut tracks the killer back to 1940s France to untangle a web of treachery and intrigue from the victim's youth. 

 

Born and raised in Scotland and now living in Shropshire, Manda Scott trained as a veterinary surgeon before becoming a columnist, blogger, occasional broadcaster, economist and celebrated historical and crime author. Scott’s fifteen novels include the international best-selling Boudica: Dreaming the Eagle which has been optioned for a television series. Follow this link to read the author’s views on the writing life- https://mandascott.co.uk/interview-with-manda/. 

For a full list of Scott’s publications, visit https://mandascott.co.uk/. 

 

Dead Men's Trousers by Irvine Welsh, Writer 

 

A scabrously funny, fast, furious and weirdly moving novel, Dead Men’s Trousers (Jonathan Cape Publishing) brings the spectacular return of Welsh’s infamous, and now middle-aged, Trainspotting crew. As the four men lurch from crisis to crisis, driven by personal histories and addictions, and riddled with anger and confusion, Welsh takes us on a high velocity journey of masculinity that will result in one of the four not surviving the book.  

 

Irvine Welsh is a Scottish novelist, short story writer, playwright and screenwriter. His international bestselling novel Trainspotting was made into an award winning film of the same name. Characterised by raw Scots dialect, Welsh’s writing often portrays a brutal depiction of working class life in Edinburgh. Click on the following link to hear the author’s views of his own books and the importance of transition in fiction-   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUHObTbFTRg. 

The Growing Season by Helen Sedgwick, Writer  

In The Growing Season (Harvill Secker Publishing) anyone can have a baby thanks to FullLife's safe and affordable healthcare plan. Without the biotech baby pouch, Eva might not have been born. And yet she has sacrificed her career and her relationship, campaigning against the pouch. Now she must search for the sinister truth behind FullLife’s closed doors.  

Author of three novels, Helen Sedgwick has an MLitt in Creative Writing from Glasgow University, winning the Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award in 2012. Her writing has been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and widely published in magazines and anthologies. Her most recent novel, When The Dead Come Calling was published in February 2020. Click on the following link for reviews- https://www.helensedgwick.com/news/.

  

The Great Chain of Unbeing by Andrew Crumey 

The Great Chain of Unbeing (Dedalus Limited) is a collection of short stories ranging from the Renaissance to a globally-warmed future, across light-years in search of hallucinogenic space-plankton, and into magical worlds of talking insects and bottled fire. Are they all part of some larger untold story? 

 

Andrew Crumey is author of an acclaimed series of works exploring themes in real and imaginary history, which have been widely translated. Crumey holds a Scientific PhD and his first novel Music, In A Foreign Language won the Saltire Society Prize for Best First Book. He has subsequently won the Northern Rock Foundation Writers Award for Sputnik Caledonia (2008), was shortlisted for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and Scottish Book of the Year, and longlisted for the Arthur C Clarke Award. Follow the link to hear Crumey’s Podcast on the relationship between Art and Science- https://bookblast.com/blog/podcast-live-interview-andrew-crumey-author/.  

 

The Sealwoman's Gift by Sally Magnusson 

 

In 1627 Barbary pirates raided the coast of Iceland and abducted some 400 of its people. Among the captives sold into slavery in Algiers were a pastor, his wife and their three children. In The Sealwoman’s Gift (Two Roads), Magnusson gives voice to Ásta, the pastor's wife, enslaved in an alien culture, she meets the loss of both her freedom and her children with the one thing she has brought from home: the stories in her head. 

 

Sally Magnusson is a Scottish author and broadcaster. After focussing on journalism and non-fiction, including the Sunday Times bestseller Where Memories Go, Magnusson published her debut fiction novel, The Sealwoman’s Gift. Following nomination for the Saltire Fiction Award, the book went on to be shortlisted for the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award 2019, the Paul Torday Memorial Prize, the McKitterick Prize, the Waverton Good Read Award and the HWA Debut Fiction Crown.  Her second novel, The Ninth Child, was published by Two Roads in March 2020. Follow the link to read about Magnusson’s inspiration for The Sealwoman’s Gift- http://enablemagazine.co.uk/interview-scotswoman-year-sally-magnusson/.