Five years after winning the Booker for Shuggie Bain, Douglas Stuart reflects on the pressures of being a prize winner, the queer canon, the politics of dialect, and how the arts have become less accessible for working-class people
Monthly Spotlight: Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
Monthly Spotlight: Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
- Published
Winner of the Booker Prize 2020, Shuggie Bain has captured hearts with the story of a young boy plagued by poverty and trauma
Before Douglas Stuart won the Booker Prize in 2020 with his debut novel, Shuggie Bain, he was also a fashion designer, working in New York.
Stuart based Shuggie Bain on his own childhood living in poverty in Glasgow, though the book isn’t strictly autobiographical.
Shuggie Bain follows the titular character as he tries to survive living within a family that is falling apart. Abandoned by his father and siblings, Shuggie is left to care for his alcoholic mother while struggling to come to terms with his own identity.
From a reading guide and extract, to an illuminating interview with the book’s author, find out more about our August Monthly Spotlight here.
Shuggie Bain
Winner of The Booker Prize 2020
- Published by
- Picador
Douglas Stuart’s blistering and heartbreaking debut is an exploration of the unsinkable love that only children can have for their damaged parents