Leila Aboulela is on the Saltire Literary Awards 2019 shortlists announced on October 25, 2019, for her book Bird Summons.
The Saltire Literary Awards were founded to recognise books which are either by “living authors of Scottish descent or residing in Scotland,” or which deal with “the work or life of a Scot or with a Scottish question, event or situation in 1936. One of the previous winners for these awards was Leila Aboulela in 2018 for her book Elsewhere, Home.
The awards recognise work across six literary categories (Fiction, Non-Fiction, Research, History, Poetry, and First Book) and two publishing categories (Publisher and Emerging Publisher) as well as the Calum MacDonald Memorial Award. The Literary Awards see the winner of each book award receive a cash prize of £2,000 and go on to be considered for the top prize of Saltire Scottish Book of the Year, receiving a further £5,000.
Sarah Mason, programme director at the Saltire Society, said: “We are proud of the fact that the Saltire Literary Awards shortlists celebrate the diversity, quality and richness of books to come from Scotland over the past year. The Saltire Literary Awards have a proud history of recognising excellence and bringing this to wider attention and we congratulate the writers and publishers who have been shortlisted this year.”
From these categories, there is one that is of interest for followers of the African literary scene which is in bold in the fiction award listed below.
The Saltire Society Scottish Fiction Book of the Year Award
- Lucy Ellmann, Ducks, Newburyport (Galley Beggar Press).
- Ruairidh MacIlleathain (Roddy MacLean), Còig Duilleagan na Seamraig (Five Leaves of the Shamrock) (CLÀR).
- Leila Aboulela, Bird Summons (Weidenfeld & Nicolson).
- Ewan Morrison, Nina X (Fleet).
- Polly Clark, Tiger (Riverrun Books).
- Damian Barr, You Will Be Safe Here (Bloomsbury Publishing)
The winners of all the awards will be announced at a ceremony in Edinburgh, Scotland on November 30th, 2018
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