Douglas Stuart's Shuggie Bain has been named as the winner of the 2020 Booker Prize for Fiction. Based on Stuart's own childhood, Shuggie Bain tells the story of a young boy growing up in 1980s Glasgow with a mother who is battling addiction. Stuart, a former fashion designer who started writing in his spare time a decade ago, dedicated the book to his own mother, who died of alcoholism when he was 16.
Douglas Stuart is in conversation with the writer and broadcaster Natalie Haynes.
The Booker Prize is open to fiction writers of any nationality writing in English and published in the UK or Ireland. The shortlist of six was selected from 162 submitted books and included:
- Diane Cook The New Wilderness,
- Tsitsi Dangarembga This Mournable Body,
- Avni Doshi Burnt Sugar,
- Maaza Mengiste The Shadow King,
- Douglas Stuart Shuggie Bain,
- Brandon Taylor Real Life.
