Scotland’s Highland Book Prize Names Its Longlist

In News by Porter Anderson

Scotland’s Highland Book Prize longlist features nonfiction, fiction, and poetry this year, an award for trade publishers and authors.

Image: Highland Book Prize

By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson

Shortlist in May, Winner in June
The load of book and publishing awards programs announcing early-cycle news this year continues to grow, this week with Scotland’s 2024 Highland Book Prize—Duais Leabhair na Gàidhealtachd—issuing a longlist. The designation of 2024 is not a mistake; this competition has a different timetable from that of many others,

You’ll remember that the intent of this awards program—a co-presentation of the Highland Society of London and Moniack Mhor—is to honor fiction, nonfiction, and poetry that “recognizes the rich talent, landscape, and cultural diversity of the Highlands.”

It’s the specificity and dedication of this prize, in this case to a place, that makes this an awards program for trade publishers and authors that we’ve elected to add to our coverage.

A team of volunteer readers selected 12 titles for the longlist, and the jury for this cycle at the Highland comprises poet and essayist Jen Hadfield, a winner of the 2024 Windham Campbell Prize; fiction writer Cynan Jones; and poet, lecturer, and broadcaster Peter Mackay, recently appointed as the Scotland’s Makar or national poet.

A shortlist is anticipated in May, and a winner is to be named in June.

Scotland’s Highland Book Prize Longlist 2024
  • Between Two Waters by Pam Brunton (Canongate, nonfiction)
  • Beyond by Aonghas Macneacail (Shearsman, poetry)
  • Birds / Humans / Machines / Dolphins by Genevieve Carver (Guillemot Press, poetry)
  • Clear by Carys Davies (Granta, fiction)
  • Gliff by Ali Smith (Hamish Hamilton, fiction)
  • The Island at the Edge of Night by Lucy Strange (Chicken House, fiction, young adult)
  • The Island in the Sound by Niall Campbell (Bloodaxe, poetry)
  • Night Train to Odesa: Covering the Human Cost of Russia’s War by Jen Stout (Birlinn, nonfiction)
  • Remember the Rowan by Kirsten MacQuarrie (Ringwood, fiction)
  • Storm’s Edge: Life, Death and Magic in the Islands of Orkney by Peter Marshall (William Collins, nonfiction)
  • Sweeney: An Intertonguing by Rody Gorman (Francis Boutle, poetry)
  • Women of the Hebrides | Ban-eileanaich Innse Gall by Joni Buchanan (Acair, nonfiction)

More from us on publishing and book awards in international markets is here, more on Scotland is here, and more on the United Kingdom’s market is here.

About the Author

Porter Anderson

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Porter Anderson has been named International Trade Press Journalist of the Year in London Book Fair's International Excellence Awards. He is Editor-in-Chief of Publishing Perspectives. He formerly was Associate Editor for The FutureBook at London's The Bookseller. Anderson was for more than a decade a senior producer and anchor with CNN.com, CNN International, and CNN USA. As an arts critic (Fellow, National Critics Institute), he was with The Village Voice, the Dallas Times Herald, and the Tampa Tribune, now the Tampa Bay Times. He co-founded The Hot Sheet, a newsletter for authors, which now is owned and operated by Jane Friedman.