Leila Aboulela Gets Shortlisted for the 2019 Saltire Literary Awards

October 29, 2019October 29, 2019 Editor

Sudanese writer, Leila Aboulela, is on the shortlist of the 2019 Saltire Literary Awards, for her book, “Bird Summons.”

First awarded in 1937, the Saltire Literary Awards honours writers of Scottish descent or resident in Scotland, in the categories of; Saltire Fiction Book of the Year, Saltire First Book of the Year, Saltire Research Book of the Year, Saltire Poetry Book of the Year, Saltire Nonfiction Book of the Year, Saltire History Book of the Year, Saltire Emerging Publisher of the Year, Saltire Publisher of the Year and the Calum MacDonald Award (for the publisher of an outstanding example of pamphlet poetry published during the previous year).

The winner in each category will be awarded 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.

Sudanese writer who lives in Scotland and winner of the 2000 Caine Prize for African Writing, Lelila Aboulela, was shortlisted in the category of Saltire Fiction Book of the Year Award, for her book, “Bird Summons.”

The shortlists in the different categories as announced are;

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 Saltire Society Scottish Non-Fiction Book of the Year Award

Dòmhnall Eachann Meek (Donald E. Meek), Seòl Mo Bheatha (My Life Journey) (CLÀR)
Mary Miller, Jane Haining: A Life of Love and Courage (Birlinn Ltd)
Dr David Wilson, My Life with Murderers (Sphere)
Kate Clanchy, Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me (Picador)
Melanie Reid, The World I Fell Out Of (4th Estate)
Kerry Hudson, Lowborn: Growing up, getting away and returning to Britain’s poorest towns (Chatto & Windus)

The Saltire Society Scottish First Book of the Year Award

Angela Meyer, A Superior Spectre (Saraband)
Fraser MacDonald, Escape from Earth: A Secret History of the Space Rocket (Profile Books)
Alan Brown, Overlander (Saraband)
Stephen Rutt, The Seafarers: A Journey Among Birds (Elliott & Thompson)
Clare Hunter, Threads of Life (Sceptre (Hodder & Stoughton))
Special Commendation: Tracy Patrick, Blushing is for Sinners (Clochoderick Press)

The Saltire Scottish Research Book of the Year Award supported by the National Library of Scotland

Kirstie Blair, Working Verse in Victorian Scotland: Poetry, Press, Community (Oxford University Press)
Thomas Devine, The Scottish Clearances: A History of the Dispossessed, 1600-1900 (Penguin Random House)
Laura Watts, Energy at the End of the World: An Orkney Islands Saga (The MIT Press)

The Saltire Scottish History Book of the Year Award supported by the Scottish Historical Review Trust

Norman H Reid, Alexander III: 1249-1286, First Among Equals (Birlinn Ltd)
Alasdair Pettinger, Frederick Douglass and Scotland, 1846: Living an Antislavery Life (Edinburgh University Press)
James Buchan, John Law A Scottish Adventurer of the Eighteenth Century (MacLehose Press)
Malcolm Macdonald and Donald John MacLeod, The Darkest Dawn (Acair)
R A McDonald, The Sea Kings: The Late Norse Kingdoms of Man and the Isles c.1066–1275 (John Campbell)