History of the Awards

Since 1972, the Scottish Arts Council Book Awards have recognised and rewarded excellence in literary fiction, poetry, and literary non-fiction by Scottish authors.  In 1999 the Scottish Arts Council introduced the first Children’s Book Awards in Scotland for writers for children, and a new overall prize of £10,000 for the Scottish Arts Council Book of the Year. The children’s book awards have grown into the Royal Mail Children’s Book Awards (now run by Scottish Book Trust).

Now sponsored by the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust, the awards are the largest literary prizes of their kind in Scotland, and the third largest in the UK.

The four categories of awards are:

• Fiction (including the short story)
• Poetry
• Literary Non-Fiction
• First Book

The winning author of each category will receive an award of £5,000.

These four finalists will then be considered for the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Book of the Year, worth an additional £25,000.  The winning author will therefore receive an overall prize of £30,000.