Shuggie Bain wins 2020 Booker Prize

Douglas Stuart’s Shuggie Bain was announced as the winner of the 2020 Booker Prize for Fiction, in the culmination of a star-studded ‘ceremony without walls’ from London’s Roundhouse. It was hosted by BBC Radio 4’s John Wilson and included contributions from HRH The Duchess of Cornwall, President Obama, and three former Booker Prize winners: Kazuo Ishiguro, Margaret Atwood and Bernardine Evaristo. Margaret Busby announced Douglas Stuart’s win, and Stuart appeared via a special screen to be awarded the £50,000 prize and deliver an acceptance speech. He received a trophy, a designer-bound edition of his book and a further £2,500 for being shortlisted.

Shuggie Bain is Stuart’s first novel. Based on his own childhood, it is a searing account of a young boy growing up in Thatcher’s Glasgow of the 1980s, with a mother who is battling addiction.