Douglas Stuart (writer)

Stuart was born in Sighthill, a housing estate in Glasgow, Scotland.[2] He was the youngest of three siblings. His father left him and his family when he was young, and he was raised by a single mother who was battling alcoholism and addiction.[3] His mother died from alcoholism-related health issues when he was 16. Subsequently, when he would go on to write his debut Booker Prize-winning novel, Shuggie Bain, the book would be inspired by his struggles, his mother's struggles as she battled alcoholism and his relationship with his mother.[4] Speaking about his mother, he says: "My mother died very quietly of addiction one day."[5] After his mother's death, he lived with his older brother before moving into a boarding house when he was 17.[3]

Writing on Literary Hub about working-class living in the late 1970s and 1980s, Stuart notes that he grew up in a house without books and surrounded by poverty. This was the time when Thatcher-era economic policies had "decimated the working man," moving industry away from the west coast of Scotland, leaving behind mass unemployment, alcoholism, and drug abuse.[6]

He received a bachelor's degree from the Scottish College of Textiles (now Heriot-Watt University) and a master's degree from the Royal College of Art in London.[7] He had no formal education in literature, and notes that while he wanted to study English literature in college, he was discouraged from choosing the subject by a teacher who mentioned that it would "not suit someone from his background," resulting in Stuart subsequently studying textiles instead.[3]

Stuart moved to New York City at the age of 24 to begin a career in fashion design. He worked for many brands, including Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, Banana Republic and Jack Spade, for more than 20 years.[7] Stuart balanced his writing with his design job. He started writing his first novel when he was balancing 12-hour shifts as a senior director of design at Banana Republic.[8]

Prior to his first novel being published, his works were featured on The New Yorker and on LitHub.[9]

His first novel, Shuggie Bain, won the 2020 Booker Prize, chosen by a judging panel comprising Margaret Busby (chair), Lee Child, Sameer Rahim, Lemn Sissay, and Emily Wilson.[10][11] Stuart is the second Scottish author to win the Booker Prize in its 51-year history,[12] after it was awarded in 1994 to James Kelman for How Late It Was, How Late,[13] a book Stuart has credited with changing his life, since it was "one of the first times he had seen his people and dialect on the page".[14][15][16] Stuart said: "When James won in the mid-90s, Scottish voices were seen as disruptive and outside the norm."[10]

Shuggie Bain was also longlisted for the 2021 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction,[17] shortlisted for the 2020 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize,[18] and was a finalist for both the 2020 Kirkus Prize[19] and the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction.[20][21] However, when Stuart wrote the novel, responses from publishers were not as encouraging, with the book being rejected by 32 US publishing companies[22] (as well as a dozen in the UK),[23] before it was finally sold to American independent publisher Grove Atlantic,[8] who published it in hardcover on 11 February 2020.[24] Shuggie Bain was later published in the United Kingdom by the Picador imprint of Pan Macmillan.[25]

The novel received generally favourable review coverage once it was published, including in The Observer,[26] The New York Times,[27] The Scotsman,[28] the TLS,[29] The Hindu,[30] and elsewhere. The book was praised for its authentic portrayal of post-industrial working-class Glasgow of the 1980s and early 1990s, and also for his capture of the "wry, indefatigable Glaswegian voice in all its various shades of wit, anger and hope."[5] Speaking at the Booker Prize award ceremony, Margaret Busby, chair of the panel, noted that the book was destined to be a classic, and went on to describe the work as a "moving, immersive and nuanced portrait of a tight-knit social world, its people and its values."[10]

In November 2020, Stuart revealed that he had finished his second novel, tentatively titled Loch Awe, also set in mid-1990s Glasgow.[31] The book is a love story between two young men, set against the backdrop of post-industrial Glasgow, with its territorial gangs, and divisions across sectarian lines. In his words, the book is about "toxic masculinity" and the violence that can stem from pressures on working-class boys to "man-up".[32][33] The novel, titled Young Mungo, is scheduled to be published by Grove Press on 5 April 2022,[34] and by Picador on 14 April 2022.[35]

In a conversation with 2019 Booker winner Bernardine Evaristo on 23 November, livestreamed as a Southbank Centre event, Stuart said: "One of my biggest regrets I think is that growing up so poor I almost had to elevate myself to the middle class to turn around to tell a working-class story."[22] Discussing the "middle-class" publishers' rejections he had received for Shuggie Bain, he told Evaristo: "Everyone was writing these really gorgeous letters. They were saying 'Oh my god this will win all of the awards and it's such an amazing book and I have never read anything like that, but I have no idea how to market it'."[22] Stuart said in a 2021 conversation with the Duchess of Cornwall that winning the Booker Prize transformed his life.[36]

In 2021, he received an honorary doctorate from Heriot-Watt University.[37][38]

Stuart's second novel, Young Mungo, prior to its 2022 publication was described by Oprah Daily as "a beautiful novel about family love and the dangers of being different in a violent, hyper-masculine world",[39] and Kirkus Reviews concluded: "Romantic, terrifying, brutal, tender, and, in the end, sneakily hopeful. What a writer."[40]

Stuart holds dual British and American citizenship.[41] He is gay and lives in East Village, Manhattan, with his husband, Michael Cary, an art curator at the Gagosian Gallery.[8]

• 2020: Booker Prize for Shuggie Bain[42]
• 2020: Waterstones Scottish Book of the Year (Shuggie Bain)[43]
• 2021: American Academy of Arts and Letters: Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction[44]
• 2021: British Book Awards: Overall Book of the Year (Shuggie Bain)[45]
• 2021: British Book Awards: Debut Book of the Year (Shuggie Bain)[46]
• 2021: Independent Publisher Book Awards: Europe Best Regional Fiction (Bronze)[47]
• 2021: Honorary degree from Heriot-Watt University for services to fashion and literature[48]

• Official website
• Douglas Stuart's official page on the Booker Prizes website.
• Cressida Leyshon, "Douglas Stuart on Growing Up Queer Before the Internet", The New Yorker, 6 January 2020.
• "Interview | Booker winner Douglas Stuart: 'I owe Scotland everything'", The Guardian, 21 November 2020.