Some of Scotland's leading literary names, as well as emerging publishing talent, have made the short lists of the 2016 Saltire Literary Awards.
Irvine Welsh, Jenni Fagan and James Kelman are among the writers in the running for the prizes unveiled last night by the Saltire Society, which runs the annual awards.
The Fiction Book of the Year shortlist features a number of acclaimed authors, including the latest novel from 2012 Saltire Book of the Year winner, James Kelman, alongside The Blade Artist by Irvine Welsh, The Sunlight Pilgrims by Jenni Fagan, The Brilliant & Forever by Kevin MacNeil, Graeme Macrae Burnet’s His Bloody Project, also shortlisted for this year’s Man Booker Prize, as well as This Must be the Place from Maggie O’Farrell.
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In the non-fiction category, Amy Liptrot’s acclaimed The Outrun competes with John Kay’s Other People’s Money as well books from academic James Crawford, writer Richard Holloway and cartography specialist John Moore.
The First Book of the Year shortlist features Scottish lawyer Isabel Buchanan’s biographical account of her time spent as a 23-year-old working on death-row cases in Pakistan, journalist Chitra Ramaswamy’s Expecting, Infinite Ground by Martin MacInnes, and This Changes Things, Claire Askew’s first collection of poetry.
The poetry book of the year award short list includes Kathleen Jamie, John Glenday, Don Paterson, Pàdraig MacAoidh / Peter Mackay, J.O. Morgan, and Vicki Husband.
The publisher short list includes Floris Books, Black and White Publishing, Saraband, Birlinn and the National Galleries of Scotland.
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The new emerging publisher award shortlist includes Keara Donnachie of Sandstone Press, Laura Waddell and Robbie Guillory of Freight Books, Leah McDowell of Floris Books and Sha Nazir of BHP Comics.
The winning book from each of the six awards will go on to compete for the coveted Saltire Scottish Book of the Year Award and an accompanying £6,000 cash prize, awarded to Michel Faber last year for his novel The Book of Strange New Things.
The winners of all six book Awards as well as the two publishing awards will be formally announced at a special ceremony in Edinburgh on the 24 November.
Jim Tough, executive director of the Saltire Society, said: "Spanning academia, poetry, biography and prose, the sheer scale and variety of writing talent to be seen in the shortlists is remarkable.
"As always, excellence is evident across all awards and I know the judges will have their work cut out to decide upon winners.
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"The Saltire Society Literary Awards have a proud history of celebrating and bringing wider attention to excellence in all literary forms and I would like to offer my congratulations to every writer who has made it onto one of these shortlists and to the publishers presenting their work. I wish them the very best of luck when the awards are announced next month."
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