LONDON ā Scottish writer Douglas Stuart won the Booker Prize for fiction Thursday for āShuggie Bain,ā the story of a boyās turbulent coming of age in hardscrabble 1980s Glasgow.
Stuart, 44, won the prestigious 50,000 pound ($66,000) award for his first published novel, the product of a decade of work.
Stuart dedicated the book to own mother, who died when he was 16.
Though there have been many British winners of the Booker Prize, most of them English, Stuart is the first Scottish victor since James Kelman took the 1994 prize with āHow Late it Was, How Lateā ā a book Stuart has called an inspiration.
Mantel won the Booker for both its predecessors, āWolf Hallā and āBring up the Bodies,ā and had been widely tipped for the hat trick.