FLETCHER OF SALTOUN AWARD 2013
William McIlvanney to receive the Fletcher of Saltoun Award for 2013.
At his author event during the Bloody Scotland Festival in Stirling on Sunday 15th September the Saltire Society have announced this important award to honour the work and achievements of writer William McIlvanney.
This prestigious award is given in recognition of an outstanding contribution to Scotland's life and culture.
Our Council was unanimous in their support for the award noting McIlvanney’s particular contribution to Scottish literature, inspiring and influencing new generations of Scottish writers, and enthralling and entertaining readers in Scotland and internationally. As a previous winner of the Saltire Book of the Year Award for his novel ‘The Kiln’ our recognition of his achievements is long standing.
On being told of the award Mr McIlvaney said;
‘I am overwhelmed by the news. Andrew Fletcher is one of the many Scots in history for whom my admiration is great and any award bearing his name is one I will be proud to be given.’
The award will be made on Thursday 26th September at 5.00pm in the Mitchell Library in Glasgow where we will celebrate the occasion with invited guests, members and friends.
If you wish to attend this evetn please contact the Society as soon as possible as spaces are limited.
Writer, journalist and broadcaster Ruth Wishart will be speaking to William McIlvanney’s achievements at the ceremony, where the award will be made by Saltire Society President Magnus Linklater.
Jim Tough, Executive Director of the Saltire said;
‘William McIlvaney has been a powerful and influential voice not in Scottish literature but across public life for many years. His work speaks of the people and communities that were all too often absent from our literature. In a year when his early books are being brought to a new audience through re-issue by Canongate Publishers we are delighted to highlight his enormous contribution to Scottish cultural life’.
About William McIlvanney
Scottish novelist William McIlvanney was born in 1936 in Kilmarnock, the son of a miner. He graduated from Glasgow University and worked as an English teacher between 1960 and 1975. His first book, Remedy is None, was published in 1966 and won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize. Docherty (1975), a moving portrait of a miner whose courage and endurance is tested during the depression, won the Whitbread Novel Award. The Big Man (1985), is the story of Dan Scoular, an unemployed man who turns to bare-knuckle fights to make a living. Both novels feature typical McIlvanney characters - tough, often violent, men locked in a struggle with their own nature and background. The Kiln (1996), is the story of Tam Docherty, the grandson of the hero of Docherty. It won the Saltire Society Scottish Book of the Year Award. The Big Man (1985) was made into a film starring Liam Neeson. Laidlaw (1977) and The Papers of Tony Veitch (1983) are both crime novels.
William McIlvanney is also an acclaimed poet, and is the author of The Longships in Harbour: Poems (1970) and Surviving the Shipwreck (1991), which also contains pieces of journalism, including an essay about T. S. Eliot. His short story 'Dreaming' (published in Walking Wounded in 1989) was filmed by BBC Scotland in 1990 and won a BAFTA. His brother is the sports journalist Hugh McIlvanney.
The Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun Award was established in 1988 and is presented in recognition of a significant contribution made to Scottish culture. Previous recipients include Tom Fleming, Donald Dewar, George Davie, David Daiches, Robin Jenkins and George Mackay Brown amongst others. Nominations are made by the Saltire Society Council.
Photo copyright Iain McLean.