Glasgow-born writer and novelist Douglas Stewart has won the prestigious Man Booker Prize for his debut novel 'Shuggie Bain'. The award comes with a cash prize of €55,000 ($66,000) and was announced on Thursday via live-streaming from London. Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall and former US President Barack Obama also attended the ceremony remotely.
In an emotional speech, Stewart called his novel as a "love story" that depicted the stormy relationship between a child and his troubled parents.
Describing the novel as intimate and gripping, Margaret Busby who chaired the judging panel said that it would undoubtedly become a classic. 'Shuggie Bain' is drawn closely from the life of the author and is a coming of age novel set in Glasgow.
In an interview to NPR, Douglas Stewart revealed his own upbringing in Glasgow and the events of his childhood that shaped his writing.
"I think one of the greatest things you can do when you've been a child who's suffered trauma and been around addiction where you have absolutely no control over it, is actually to turn it into art and really sort of examining it up closely," the author said.
Stewart was the only British novelist to have made it into the final six authors shortlisted for the Booker Prize in fiction.