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20 October 2018

Robin Robertson longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2018

24 July 2018

The Man Booker Prize promotes the finest in fiction by rewarding the very best book of the year. The £50,000 prize is the world's most important literary award and has the power to transform the fortunes of authors and publishers.

The 13-strong longlist for the 2018 Prize was announced on 24 July and features The Long Take (Picador) by Scottish poet Robin Robertson. In his capacity as Associate Publisher at Jonathan Cape, Robertson acquired the UK rights to Michael Ondaatje's Warlight which is also on the longlist (see The Bookseller 21 September 2017). Sabrina by Nick Drnaso (Granta Books) is the first ever graphic novel on the longlist.

The shortlist will be announced on 20 September and the winner on 16 October 2018. For details, see the Man Booker Prize website.

 

SCOTTISH WRITERS

James Kelman is the only Scot to have won the Booker Prize. How Late it Was, How Late (first published by Secker & Warburg) won in 1994.

Others who have been listed are:

  • Muriel Spark shortlisted for The Public Image (Macmillan) in 1969; The Driver's Seat (Penguin) in 1970; and Loitering with Intent (Bodley Head) in 1981
  • William Boyd (who regards himself as a Scottish writer) was shortlisted for An Ice-Cream War in 1982; and longlisted for Any Human Heart in 2002 (both published by Hamish Hamilton)
  • George Mackay Brown shortlisted for Beside The Ocean of Time (John Murray) in 1996
  • Shena Mackay shortlisted for The Orchard on Fire (Heinemann) in 1996
  • Andrew O'Hagan shortlisted for Our Fathers in 1999 and longlisted for The Illuminations in 2015 (both Faber & Faber)
  • Ali Smith shortlisted for Hotel World in 2001; The Accidental in 2005; How to Be Both in 2014 and Autumn in 2017 (all published by Hamish Hamilton)
  • A L Kennedy longlisted for Serious Sweet (Jonathan Cape) in 2016
  • Graeme Macrae Burnet shortlisted for His Bloody Project (Contraband) in 2016
  • Robin Robertson longlisted for The Long Take (Picador) in 2018


SCOTTISH PUBLISHERS WITH BOOKS ON THE LISTS

Canongate
A book published in the UK by Edinburgh-based Canongate Books won in 2002. Life of Pi by Yann Martel (first published in Canada) is to date the biggest-selling Booker winner. It was also made into an Oscar-winning film. Other books published by Canongate have been shortlisted:

  • The Secret River by Kate Grenville (2006)
  • Carry Me Down by MJ Hyland (2006)
  • The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng (2012) (which won the Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction 2013)

and  longlisted

  • Jamrach's Menagerie by Carol Birch (2011)
  • A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki (2013)
  • Solar Bones by Mike McCormack (2017).


Contraband (an imprint of Saraband)

His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet was on the 2016 shortlist.


Polygon
Under the Frog by Tibor Fischer was shortlisted in 1993. The Edinburgh-based publisher was then an imprint of Edinburgh University Press but is now an imprint of Birlinn.


Sandstone Press
This small Highlands-based publisher has had two books longlisted:

  • The Testament of Jessie Lamb by Jane Rogers in 2011, and
  • The Marrying of Chani Kaufman by Eve Harris in 2013.

 

The Salamander Press
This Edinburgh publishing house (1981-1993) published Flying to Nowhere by John Fuller which was shortlisted in 1983.
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