Phil Miller Arts Correspondent One of Scotland's most prestigious literary awards has announced both a new sponsor and the books in the running for this year's prize.
The Scottish Arts Council's book awards are to be called the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Book Awards and the Book of the Year prize has been increased to £30,000.
Twenty short-listed titles are in the running for the fiction, literary non-fiction, poetry and first book awards.
The sponsorship by Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust represents a "long term sponsorship commitment", the arts council said. A winner will be selected in each category in April and one of the category winners will then be selected as the Book of the Year. The overall winner will be announced at a ceremony at the Borders Book Festival on June 19.
In fiction, the short list features Kate Atkinson for When Will There Be Good News?, James Buchan for The Gate of Air, Beatrice Colin for The Luminous Life of Lilly Aphrodite, Andrew Crumey for Sputnik Caledonia, Meaghan Delahunt for The Red Book, James Kelman for Kieron Smith, Boy, and Kei Miller for The Same Earth. The non-fiction short list comprises Kate Clanchy for Antigona and Me, Janice Galloway for This is Not About Me, Rodge Glass for Working with Alasdair Gray: A Secretary's Biography, and Sara Maitland for A Book of Silence.
The poetry short list features Robert Crawford for Full Volume, Jen Hadfield for Nigh-No-Place, Frank Kuppner for Arioflotga and Tom Pow for Dear Alice.
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