Saltire Society Literary Awards winners 2018
30 November 2018
All That Remains: A Life in Death by forensic
anthropologist Professor Dame Sue Black (Transworld) is the winner
of the coveted Saltire Society Book of the Year award 2018. It also
won the Scottish Non-fiction Book of the Year award. The winners
were announced at a ceremony in Edinburgh on 30 November 2018. The
category winners were:
- Sal by Mick Kitson (Canongate Books)
- Saltire Society First Book of the Year
- Elsewhere, Home by Leila
Aboulela (Saqi Books) - Saltire Society Scottish Fiction Book
of the Year
- All That Remains: A Life in Death by
Professor Dame Sue Black (Transworld) - Saltire Society Scottish
Non-Fiction Book of the Year
- Wristwatch by Jay Whittaker
(Cinnamon Press) - Saltire Society Scottish Poetry Book of the
Year
- What the Victorians Made of Romanticism:
Material Artifacts, Cultural Practices, and Reception
History by Tom Mole (Princeton University Press) -
Saltire Society Scottish Research Book of the Year
- The Drowned and the Saved by Les
Wilson (Birlinn Ltd) - Saltire Society Scottish History Book of the
Year
- Louise Welsh - Most Inspiring Saltire Society Scottish First
Book Award Winner
Widely regarded as Scotland's most prestigious book awards, the
Saltire Literary Awards are organised by the Saltire
Society, a non-political independent charity founded in 1936
which celebrates the Scottish imagination, and are supported by
Creative Scotland.
The shortlists in full are:
Saltire Society Scottish Fiction Book of the Year Award
- Elsewhere, Home - Leila Aboulela (Saqi Books)
(WINNER)
- The Great Chain of Unbeing - Andrew Crumey (Dedalus
Limited)
- The Sealwoman's Gift - Sally Magnusson (Two
Roads)
- A Treachery of Spies - Manda Scott (Transworld
Publishers)
- The Growing Season - Helen Sedgwick (Harvill
Secker)
- Dead Men's Trousers - Irvine Welsh (Jonathan
Cape)
Saltire Society Scottish Non-Fiction Book of the Year
Award
- Appointment in Arezzo - Alan Taylor (Polygon)
- All That Remains: A Life in Death - Professor Sue
Black (Transworld Publishers) (WINNER)
- Moscow Calling - Angus Roxburgh (Birlinn Ltd)
- Robert Louis Stevenson in Samoa - Joseph Farrell
(MacLehose Press)
- The Story of Looking - Mark Cousins (Canongate
Books)
- Waiting for the Last Bus - Richard
Holloway (Canongate Books)
Saltire Society Scottish Poetry Book of the Year Award
- Who is Mary Sue? - Sophie Collins (Faber and
Faber)
- Bantam - Jackie Kay (Picador)
- So Glad I'm Me - Roddy Lumsden (Bloodaxe Books)
- The Long Take - Robin Robertson (Picador)
- Wristwatch - Jay Whittaker (Cinnamon Press)
(WINNER)
Saltire Society Scottish Research Book of the Year Award,
supported by the National Library of Scotland
- Early Cinema in Scotland - John Caughie, Trevor
Griffiths and María A. Vélez-Serna (Edinburgh University
Press)
- What the Victorians Made of Romanticism: Material
Artifacts, Cultural Practices, and Reception History - Tom
Mole (Princeton University Press) (WINNER)
- Tea and empire: James Taylor in Victorian Ceylon -
Angela McCarthy and Sir Tom Devine (Manchester University
Press)
- Literature and Union: Scottish Texts, British Contexts
- Gerard Carruthers and Colin Kidd (Oxford University Press)
Saltire Society Scottish History Book of the year Award,
supported by the Scottish Historical Review Trust
- Scotland's Populations from the 1850s to Today
- Michael Anderson (Oxford University Press)
- Sir David Nairne: The Life of a Scottish Jacobite at
the Court of the Exiled Stuarts - Edward Corp (Peter Lang
Ltd)
- The Wealth of the Nation: Scotland, Culture and
Independence - Cairns Craig (Edinburgh University Press)
- Scots & Catalans - JH Elliott (Yale University
Press)
- Scottish Presbyterianism and Settler Colonial Politics:
Empire of Dissent - Valerie Wallace (Palgrave Macmillan)
- The Drowned and the Saved - Les Wilson (Birlinn Ltd)
(WINNER)
Saltire Society Scottish First Book of the Year Award
- St Kilda: The Silent Islands - Alex Boyd (Luath
Press)
- Sal - Mick Kitson (Canongate Books) (WINNER)
- Amphibian - Christina Neuwirth (Speculative
Books)
- A' Togail an t-Srùbain - Calum L. MacLeòid (CLÀR)
As well as the books of the year, there was a special award for
most inspiring First Book Award.
Most Inspiring Saltire Society Scottish First Book Award
Winner
- Kate Clanchy - winner of the First Book Award in 1996 for
Slattern
- Michel Faber - winner of the First Book Award in 1999 for
Some Rain Must Fall
- Jackie Kay - winner of the First Book Award in 1992 for The
Adoption Papers
- A. L. Kennedy - winner of the First Book Award in 1991 for
Night Geometry and the Garscadden Trains
- Ali Smith - winner of the First Book Award in 1995 for Free
Love and Other Stories
- Louise Welsh- winner of the First Book Award in 2002 for
The Cutting Room (WINNER)